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Most businesses are looking at deriving maximum efficiency from all types of resources at their disposal. Utility computing, also known as on-demand computing, is a way to achieve that. An umbrella phrase for all the technology, tools, and processes that collectively deliver, monitor, and manage IT as a service to the user, utility computing is increasingly finding acceptance in large organizations.

According to a recent research by market research firm, In-Stat, 27% of large enterprises (with 1,000 or more employees) among US businesses have employed utility computing services. Of the remaining organizations, 27% indicate that they are "extremely" or "very" interested in exploring the benefits within the next two years.

The popularity of utility computing is in line with the current trend towards getting everything on-demand. One simple example of utility computing is Software as a Service (SaaS), though many would not classify this under utility computing. The appeal of utility computing, though different in terms of magnitude, can be considered quite similar in terms of characteristics to SaaS. Utility computing appeals to different stakeholders in an organization, in various ways.

Not surprising that Gartner has identified utility computing to be the most influential force in enterprise outsourcing todaywith long-term implications far beyond the current off-shoring trend. According to IDC, utility computing spending will touch $4.6 bn in the current year.

Bumps on the Road
The road ahead however cannot be taken as an easy ride, as it may seem. There are some major obstacles that come in the way of utility computing. In most of the cases, organizations use multiple environments like Windows, Unix variants, Linux and legacy mainframe systems. Vendor offerings that truly and seamlessly support heterogeneous environments are rare.

In some cases, the large organizations have already invested heavily in multiple system management frame-works like IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, CAs Unicenter and Microsoft SMS/WLM. It poses a serious challenge to the further growth of utility based computing, as the inability to use all the components of the existing framework still remains.

In case of small and medium enterprises, TCO and RoI are two factors, which guide most of their IT decisions. An enterprise would expect a certain minimum RoI on a project within a definite payback period. Unfortunately, for these companies, the deployment of utility computing is a strategic investment and it requires high up-front costs in terms planning, training and application set up. As a result of the payback timeframe goes up.

Despite all this, the euphoria regarding utility computing does not seem to stop. The fact that organizations are moving towards large scale IT outsourcing, further builds up the case. Utility computing just takes it one step forward. It is nothing but transformational infrastructure outsourcing.

Big players like IBM, HP, Accenture, EDS, HCL, and TCS are already up to grab IT conscious organizations. These integrators are presenting ways and means to reduce costs, either by taking on the IT workload, or by providing a pay-on-use model.

Efforts are on from the vendors side to develop solutions that support a common environment. The concept appears to have moved out from the nascent stage, and heading into a bright future. Provided the vendors are able to deliver upon their promises.

Kumar Anshuman
anshumank@cybermedia.co.in

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