Dr. Elliot King

While many folks in the IT world are entranced by the Big Bang Theory and the Large Hadron Collider of technology innovation—some “killer app” will appear that revolutionizes everything—change in IT is usually incremental. Sure Time magazine may have named the personal computer the “machine of the year” in 1983. However, before PCs penetrated the corporate world, price points dropped dramatically, processing power went into overdrive and the graphical user interface became ubiquitous. Along the same lines, the Internet today is not the same as the Internet of 1995—which was cool in its own right.

Cloud computing today is in a similar position as personal computing was in 1983 and the World Wide Web was in 1995. Cloud computing is important and here to stay. According to Tech Target’s 2012 IT Priorities Survey,  27 percent of the enterprises polled said their Cloud initiative had a high priority and more than 24 percent said that they planned to increase spending on Cloud services this year. 

However, those numbers can be read from a the-glass-is-three-quarters-empty perspective as well. Nearly 75 percent of those surveyed are not going to spend more on Cloud services and don’t view investing in the Cloud as a high priority.

So what does the Cloud need technologically to stimulate the next level of adoption? The answer depends on the application. For mass storage, the Cloud has to become less expensive and more versatile. While not enterprise grade, departmental storage is still cheaper than storing data in the Cloud. Moreover, in the enterprise, storage is hierarchical; with less active or valuable data stored on less expensive devices. The Cloud has to find its role or roles in this hierarchy.

As an applications platform, the Cloud needs more standard APIs. On some level, the cloud is like a network, providing a basic functionality that can be extended by specific vendors. That fundamental functionality has to be accessible to all kinds of service providers and provider models.

Finally, data security in the Cloud is still an issue. Companies need better tools and methods to be able to assess their risks and validate their levels of protection.

At this point, virtually all companies have to be developing their strategies for the Cloud. And as the enabling technologies improve, more companies will jump in. What is your strategy this year for the Cloud?

Image contributed by Simon Howden