ODCA Members Scaling Cloud Usage, Integration Of ODCA Requirements In Member Survey Publication

Three-quarters of respondents are incorporating ODCA requirements into their cloud purchasing decisions

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Mar 18, 2014, 12:32 ET

PORTLAND, Ore., March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA), the global organization where members work together to advance the deployment of enterprise cloud solutions and services that are interoperable, secure and free of vendor lock-in, today unveiled its third annual membership survey. The survey highlights continued growth in adoption of cloud computing by Alliance members, ahead of broad market trends including broad use of ODCA usage model requirements to guide cloud purchases.

The 2013 annual ODCA membership survey, which collected information from 124 members, found that 31 percent of respondents are running at least 40 percent of their IT operations in an internal cloud. This number is expected to grow to 70 percent of respondents by 2016.

The survey also showed that 74 percent of respondents are already using or plan to use ODCA's usage model requirements in requests for proposals (RFPs) in the next six months—up from 63 percent in 2012. ODCA usage models describe specific customer requirements that should be met in order to make cloud computing simpler, more secure and more efficient.

"ODCA was founded to accelerate cloud adoption through a unified voice on customer requirements," said Mario Mueller, ODCA chairman and vice president of IT infrastructure at BMW. "With three-quarters of our members having made or planning to make purchases based on ODCA usage models, the Alliance is proving that unified requirements accelerate enterprise cloud adoption. The ODCA's work is clearly influencing enterprise adoption strategies as our members move more of their operations into the cloud."

Growing Momentum for ODCA Requirements
The 2013 annual ODCA membership survey also found that:

52 percent of respondents are proactively working to integrate cloud requirements into application development plans, while another 27 percent are actively discussing how to optimize applications for the cloud.
Two-thirds of members stated interest in participating in proof of concept testing of solutions that meet the requirements of ODCA usage models.
Among the leading usage model targets for member adoption are: Infrastructure as a Service (86 percent), Service Orchestration (49 percent), Virtual Machine Interoperability (48 percent), Service Catalog (39 percent) and Scale out Storage (39 percent).
Information as a Service has emerged as a focus for enterprise procurements, with 29 percent of all members integrating ODCA requirements into their purchasing decisions.

"As more enterprises move to the cloud, they need a path that's simple, secure and efficient," said Matthew Eastwood, group vice president and general manager of IDC's Enterprise Platform Group. "As a central resource for enterprise cloud requirements, ODCA is having a major impact on how cloud solutions are developed and deployed."

The release of the ODCA member survey comes as ODCA's board of directors kick off their members-only ODCA 2014 Solutions Summit with leading solutions provider members in Monterey, Calif. Focused on identifying business opportunities aligned with ODCA requirements, the annual Solutions Summit is a critical element of the organization's annual agenda, with the proof of concept test results expected from solutions aligned to ODCA requirements. These proof of concept results will be highlighted more broadly at Forecast 2014, ODCA's flagship conference scheduled for September 22-24, 2014 in San Francisco. More information about the Alliance, ODCA requirements and the Forecast conference can be found on the ODCA website: www.opendatacenteralliance.org.

About The Open Data Center Alliance
The Open Data Center Alliance^SM is an independent IT consortium comprised of global IT leaders who have come together to provide a unified customer vision for long-term data center requirements. The organization is led by a 14-member steering committee, which includes representatives from BMW, Capgemini, China Unicom, Infosys, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank (NAB), NTT Data, SAP, T-Systems, UBS, Verizon Terremark and The Walt Disney Company. Intel serves as technical advisor to the alliance. ODCA hosts a Flash Webinar Series every other Tuesday at 8:00am US PT. These public events are one of the best ways to get to know ODCA usage models from the ODCA members who worked on creating the documents. View the calendar and register to attend the webinars on the ODCA Flash Webinar page. More information about ODCA publications and membership can be found at the organization's website: www.opendatacenteralliance.org, and on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Twitter, and YouTube.