Cloud computing fosters enterprise growth

During cloud computing's inception, it was most actively embraced by small businesses, which have led the charge to the cloud because the technology lets them embrace enterprise-class technologies at a price point that fits their budget. This has led to a perception that the cloud is a small business-centric technology that is not too popular in enterprise settings.

According to a recent CIO magazine report, one of the cloud's dominant attributes, its ability to foster expansion, is equally relevant for businesses of all sizes. This unique attribute of the cloud is especially important in an economic environment that is tumultuous in nature and forces companies to change quickly to shifts in the market. The cloud is making these shifts possible.

The report cites three primary examples of how cloud computing is making major enterprise changes possible. The first is Coti, a perfume company that recently experienced five major changes to strategic direction, including purchasing competitors, adding to its brands and acquiring a major celebrity sponsorship. Carmen Malangone, global director of information management, told the the news source that IT is expected to simply adjust to all of the growth happening in the company and change just as fast. According to the report, this would be impossible without the cloud.

IHG, a major hotel company, spent 2010 opening 256 hotels and re-establishing the Holiday Inn brand. Bryson Koehler, senior vice president of global revenue and guest technology for IHG, told CIO magazine the company would have had to purchase new servers and essentially get into the data center business to facilitate so much change. However, the cloud allowed the company to expand computing capacity without having to overhaul its hardware.

The third company cited by the report is Lojas Renner, the second largest department store chain in Brazil. CIO Leandro Balbinot told the news source the company would not be able to keep up with its current rate of growth if it still had to maintain pre-cloud lead times for hardware installation and staff training.

By telling the stories of these three major companies that are growing quickly in a recovering global economy, the report explains the cloud's power to help businesses grow. In the past, companies had to strategically deploy resources thinking five or 10 years into the future. They then had to scramble if their growth outpaced their IT distribution. Now, the cloud fosters fast expansion by flexibly delivering IT resources without requiring major changes to hardware or licensing agreements.

Historically, major businesses have struggled to deploy the cloud because they already have so many legacy and custom applications that they depend on. The report said these issues are somewhat relevant, at least until service providers figure out interoperability in its entirety. However, for businesses experiencing rapid growth and needing to develop IT systems that can keep up, no technology is more suitable than the cloud, according to the report.

Cloud computing can also help large businesses by letting them leverage extremely powerful applications and services without having to spend heavily for unique on-premise technologies. A separate CIO magazine report explains the cloud's power by illustrating what an individual or business can do with $3,000 of cloud capacity. While many may use that money to rent a server for more than three years, a business can use the same amount of money to rent 10,000 servers for 30 minutes. Those 10,000 servers would give businesses or individuals access to a ludicrous amount of computing power, and such models are already being used by specialized, high-performance laboratory deployments and other similar settings. Over time, the report said such practices will expand to the enterprise, unleashing powerful business-specific services.