Google and IBM came out on top as the leading cloud computing vendors in a survey of developers revealed this week by Evans Data.
The biannual Evans Cloud Development Survey 2010, which polled more than 400 software developers, found that more than 40 percent cited Google as the public cloud leader. Nearly 30 percent identified IBM as the top private cloud provider.
Google is perceived as leader for setup, infrastructure, and application management in public clouds while IBM is viewed as leading in these attributes in private clouds.
“Most developers expect to be in a hybrid situation going forward with respect to application deployment in the cloud,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data, in a statement released by the company. “And these two vendors are perceived of as best filling the two main requirements for either public or private clouds, i.e., security and reliability. With no other vendors even close in perceived leadership, it’s likely that we’ll see IBM and Google dominating the cloudscape for the foreseeable future.”
Developers, Evans said, want to move applications between public and private clouds.
Public clouds are generally considered to be third-party data centres available for Internet-based application deployment, from companies such as Amazon. Private clouds are usually thought of as internal networks of systems that utilize cloud-based application deployment techniques.
In other findings in the survey included the following:
More than 80 percent of respondents feel it is important for cloud providers to offer 100 percent backward compatibility as a cloud infrastructure matures.
Sixty percent were concerned with government geographical restrictions with cloud deployments.
Better data encryption is the most sought-after security improvement for public clouds.