Grasping the cloud
Monday, October 31, 2011 5:06:40 PM
Though the cloud computing industry has already proven successful, surpassing many high expectations and fueling innovation in a number of industries, many executives and CIOs around the world are still working to grasp the true characteristics of the technology. Business Insider recently published an article explaining some of the aspects of the cloud and best practices for adoption.
According to the source, the success of the cloud industry and the way in which it has been adapted to mobile devices such as tablets is an indicator that the tech world is evolving away from personal computers. One of the many products offered in the cloud, Software-as-a-Service, allows users to store large amounts of data for a relatively minimal cost.
SaaS-based email systems have been among the quickest to see adoption, as the security risks are minimal even in public cloud models, and the scalability and flexibility the technology facilitates are currently unmatched in the minds of many executives and CIOs.
While less than 10 percent of enterprise email seats are cloud-based currently, research firm Gartner projects the service to account for more than 55 percent by 2020. Additionally, the research firm projects global SaaS revenues to increase 20 percent this year, reaching a $12 billion market. More than 60 percent of the total share will be held by North American companies.
Business Insider notes how the cloud model is especially useful for small businesses, as models such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service allow for a very flexible and scalable operation, with pay-as-you-go being one of the more common contracts.
Through these services, small businesses need not purchase expensive hardware and subsequently maintain and manage the servers and other necessary systems, as it is outsourced to the vendor. The source notes that in the past decade, the evolution of cloud services has drastically reduced the beginning and ongoing costs of IT.
According to the source, and many other experts, the cloud allows big businesses to change their capital expense to operating expense. This means that once the adoption process has been completed successfully, the company will no longer pay anything more than what is absolutely necessary for its IT management, depending on which models and services of the cloud it chooses to use.
According to the International Data Corporation, the cloud industry is projected to grow from a $3.8 billion and 600,000 unit market in 2010, to $6.4 billion and more than 1.3 million units by 2014.
-McAfee Cloud Security
