Expert: Cloud computing to dominate IT revenues in 2011

Speaking at the recent 2010 Raymond James IT Supply Chain Conference in New York, Stephen Minton, vice president of worldwide IT markets for IDC, told audiences cloud computing will be one of the most important technologies for businesses in 2011, as 15 percent of IT revenue is expected to come from the technology.

According to Minton, mobile technologies are quickly becoming prominent and are exploding onto the IT scene, but cloud computing will overcome their allure as the most important area for technological growth in the new year. He explained the cloud has been a major discussion topic among IT experts for years, but is beginning to transition from early adoption and hype into mainstream use. As a result, new models for data centers and other major changes are expected in the IT industry.

IDC expects cloud computing to drive revenue directly and indirectly by supporting improved IT infrastructure. Furthermore, IDC anticipates PaaS will become more popular in the next year. Minton explained companies are now experiencing success with private cloud models and will look to move to the public cloud for their platform services in an effort to develop a competitive edge. Companies that are able to successfully deploy PaaS cloud solutions in 2011 should be able to obtain a significant advantage that could catapult them into industry leadership roles, Minton said.

"Public cloud services adoption is growing 30 percent and it will also be a pretty big year for private cloud deployment. We still believe the long term trend favors public, but the reality is for large enterprises concerned about security issues, companies are going to be investing and getting the best of both worlds," Minton said. "It's the battle for hybrid cloud management. [Companies are] looking to establish leadership positions that can help customers on the mid and large side intelligently move from initial [private cloud] adoption to leverage the benefits of moving more into a public cloud model"

Minton also told audiences cloud computing is leading to entirely new developments in other parts of the industry. He explained companies are now building enterprise software with the cloud in mind, moving away from the traditional disk and license-based model towards the online delivery and pay-per-use cloud system.

TechTarget recently took an in-depth look at 2010, noting emerging trends and significant conclusions about the technology after another year of maturation. According to the report, companies need to understand that outages could be a part of cloud computing deployments, and must learn how to protect their businesses from technical errors. Outages may not be entirely preventable, but organizations are capable of establishing and managing their cloud operations to protect themselves from serious repercussions if the cloud goes down, the report said.

The report also predicted an increase in private cloud deployments, as TechTarget noticed new deployments and success with the technology in 2010. In many cases, businesses have been able to establish private clouds through hosting providers or on premise solutions, providing a secure, internal method for cloud deployment.

In analyzing the industry in 2010, TechTarget also concluded organizations were significantly impacted by cloud computing. The report said experts vary on how much the cloud will affect IT, with some predicting it will save it from becoming a minimal part of businesses and empower it to drive new revenue by changing business processes and upgrading internal efficiency and flexibility.

Overall, TechTarget's retrospective of cloud computing in 2010 makes it clear the technology has embedded itself as a part of mainstream business operations and will continue to have a financial and operational effect on IT departments and the enterprise.