Cloud Computing Gains Acceptance

There's evidently a lot of hype surrounding cloud computing these days. Still, slowly nevertheless surely, core concepts of cloud computing appear to be sinking in.

New study of 573 C-level executives conducted

A new study of 573 C-level executives conducted by Kelton Technology on behalf of the IT services firm Avanade finds that 74 percent say they are dedicating up to 30 percent of their annual IT budgets to cloud computing, which makes it the number one priority on the IT agenda followed closely by security.

Of course, there are after all many interpretations of what cloud computing specifically is, which the Avanade study doesn't as a matter of fact define the context of in this survey. However even so, Larry Beck, a senior director at Avanade, notes that the survey not only shows a surprising amount of interest in cloud computing among midmarket companies, it as well shows that cost reduction is no longer the primary driver. Instead, it appears that IT organizations have come to appreciate the flexibility afforded by cloud computing.

Beck warns, nevertheless, that with the growing acceptance of cloud computing, IT organizations need to be on guard for cloud sprawl. That as a general rule manifests itself in the form of multiple software-as-a-service applications that are redundant to each other, or development organizations firing up virtual servers on insecure public cloud computing services.

What constitutes cloud computing

Even accounting for some internal political gamesmanship around specifically what constitutes cloud computing, it's clear that corporations are starting to internalize the basic concepts. To what degree they are actually embracing cloud computing is highly debatable. When it comes right down to it, cloud computing is going to be a long journey, however at least we can say that many IT organizations are now stumbling in the right general direction.

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