Survey: Reduced costs and scalability are cloud's biggest draws

IT professionals are drawn to cloud services because of their scalability and the opportunity they provide to reduce overall IT spending, according to a recent survey.

The poll, conducted by an enterprise cloud storage provider, examined the attitudes of approximately 230 IT professionals toward cloud computing. The respondents work in a variety of industries, including technology, financial services, manufacturing, education and government.

Approximately 49 percent of respondents cited dynamic growth as the key benefit offered by cloud services. Managed cloud services enable enterprises to avoid investing in unnecessary hardware infrastructure. By paying for applications on a subscription basis, a company can expand its cloud services in accordance with need.

Forty-nine percent of respondents also indicated lower costs were a key factor in cloud adoption.

According to the study, approximately 44 percent of IT professionals plan to utilize cloud services for backup of data, while 38 percent intend to use the cloud for online archiving.

A recent study conducted by analytics firm Osterman Research predicted spending on cloud services will grow in 2011. According to the study, companies utilizing cloud services spent an average of $23.31 per employee on cloud computing in 2010. This is expected to grow to $26.63 per employee in 2011.