Clarifying the Cloud

Grazed from CRN. Author: Tony Jimenez.

Cloud is one of the biggest trends in IT today… that is no surprise to many. Gartner projects that the worldwide Cloud Solutions Market will be more than $148.8 billion by 2014. Surprisingly, however, only two things really seem certain.

First, despite the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) formal definition for government, it appears there is no common use of the term “cloud” in the market. In fact, it seems that cloud” is one of the most abused terms in the IT arena today. It is now used to reference almost everything IT! The Global Language Monitor named it as one of the two most confusing tech buzzwords so far this decade, along with “big data.”

Second, although everyone is “talking” about cloud computing, organizations are actually just now moving beyond the low hanging fruit of cloud: software as a service (SaaS). So, the real challenge is…“To Cloud or Not to Cloud!”…

Why go to the cloud? The answer is pretty straight forward. “Doing more with less” is a way of life for both the public and private sectors. The automation delivered by IT service management solutions, for example, is playing a vital role in helping public sector IT organizations deliver more and better services for every taxpayer dollar they spend. Self-service portals and services enable employees to find answers, report issues and order services (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS) on their own, thus reducing the burden on the IT service and support organizations and reducing cost…

Read more from the source @ http://www.crn.com/blogs-op-ed/fast-growth/240007828/clarifying-cloud.htm