One must realize that in the ever changing IT landscape, technologies keep on assuming newer dimensions before reaching the stage of maturity. Unless IT managers keep themselves abreast of new technological developments, it will be difficult to future proof the IT infrastructure of their organization.

Evolving technologies and emergence of third generation IT

Since its introduction in 1953 by IBM, the humble disk drive has witnessed generations of developments as the new versions kept on replacing the older ones with lighter, more compact, and more robust alternatives with greater capacity and more number of features.

The present version of disk drive belongs to the third generation with multiple attributes that are far better and faster yet cheaper than the older versions. This brings us to the third generation of IT that is regarded to be cheaper and better option.

We can also apply the same concept of generations to cloud computing solutions. The emergence of better and more efficient generations have been consistently driving companies, applications, and platforms to excel in terms of speed and performance in addition to many more advantages.

The cloud is poised for amazing growth in terms of its adoption by organizations from different industry verticals owing to an explosive growth of data generation and associated applications as well as analytics. Therefore it is the responsibility of IT managers to make the right move to exploit the growth opportunities to their advantage.

Need for right cloud approach and emergence of virtualization

In spite of its introduction that dates back to fifty years, virtualization could not take off due to availability of highly affordable server computing technology that was able to handle workloads.

Thanks to continuous growth in data generation, it was found that one server per single workload concept was not a practicable solution anymore. This can be attributed to growing costs of power and cooling.

This was the time when virtualization came to the rescue of IT personnel who were struggling to cope up with huge volumes of data by using legacy server resources. In fact, we witnessed re-emergence of virtualization that was possible due to new virtualization paradigms introduced by VMware around the end of 20th century.

Beginning of cloud - VPS hosting

Speaking of generations, we can brand VPS hosting as the commonest use case of first generation of cloud. Virtual Private Server is the product of virtualization that was popularized by hosting service providers across the globe.

It marked a great relief from hassles of shared hosting that crammed websites to fight among each other for share of computing and other resources. VPS hosting solution segregated environments by partitioning a physical server into multiple virtualized instances of private servers with dedicated resources.     

Virtualization technology facilitated a bend new offering that empowered websites with access to dedicated resources with root access and many more features that were not available in shared hosting environment.

VPS is regarded as the most logical option for websites that are experiencing resource crunch in shared hosting and continues to command its position as a notable milestone in the annals of web hosting.

Virtualized hypervisor - emergence of second generation cloud

Introduction of web enabled application supported by its infrastructure has been one of the most remarkable milestones. It was first demonstrated by SalesForce when the paradigm of web enabled application was conceptualized and successfully implemented. The ability to deliver enterprise applications via a website is poised to mature into a more dynamic model.

The principal factor that enabled launching of apps on the web was none other than virtualization. The evolution of the same has facilitated advancements at the level of infrastructure. Virtualization has been the main enabler of web based apps as well as other cloud computing solutions.

Amazon, HP, and Rackspace can be considered as cloud initiators with Amazon continuing to dominate the present cloud computing market. The development of proprietary set of dependable infrastructure solution helped Amazon introduce its cloud offerings for deployment, controlling, and monitoring enterprise systems.

While Amazon was engaged in developing its own infrastructure of web based systems, the organization identified a business opportunity to offer web based applications to its customers.

This marked the beginning of second generation cloud computing products that is appreciated for multiple features including cloud based API, ordering process, console, and the entire virtualized system.

Third generation cloud was responsible for major advances in terms of delivery and structure of applications. We should not however overlook the downside that consists of lack of security and compliance aspects and absence of control and application structuring.

Third generation cloud

Thanks to the delivers enterprise demands, hybrid cloud has been empowering enterprises by providing a highly capable and multi-dimensional architecture that includes a dedicated layer for security, performance, and control. It has been able to effectively address all shortcomings of second generation cloud. It also caters to demand of flexible storage in view of perpetually growing data storage needs.

Hybrid cloud provides an integrated interface to meet demands of modern applications and associated needs of computing by facilitating features of cloud computing and dedicated server hosting. Users of hybrid cloud can access power of performance and control on infrastructure as and when required by seamlessly marching computing power with workloads and application structure.

It needs to be mentioned that not all models of hybrid cloud are alike. In order to build highly successful hybrid cloud one needs to achieve extraordinary architecture coupled with exceptional automation. It also demands a platform that is dynamically scalable and customizable to enable enterprises irrespective of their sizes access the cloud platform that can cater to all possible needs of applications or enterprises.

An ideal hybrid platform is capable of providing every single element of infrastructure with a management interface that is programmable, tunable, and flexible.

It can be safely predicted that the third generation cloud is poised to sustain for a longer period since it empowers users with limitless configurability and customizability. No wonder, hybrid cloud hosting is the most talked about solution in IT circles and businesses and is clearly poised to become the most sought after resource for companies of all sizes and from all verticals.