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Emerging Opportunities in Cloud Computing

Everywhere you turn these days there is talk of cloud computing.  It’s surprising then that the results of a recent survey conducted by RackSpace indicated that 67% of small businesses and 47% of mid sized businesses were not even familiar with the term “Cloud Computing”.

Based on the survey results, adoption rates are understandably low (5% for small businesses, 11% for medium business).  To me the survey results really strike a chord because having used cloud computing services for more than a year now, and being totally sold on the benefits I can see a gigantic opportunity coming down the tracks.  I am not alone in this belief, Merrill Lynch have gone on record with a prediction that the cloud computing market will be worth an estimated US $94 Billion annually within 4 years, Amazon, Oracle, HP, Dell, Microsoft, EMC, IBM and others are also putting their money where their mouth is at a staggering pace. Cloud Computing is really one of the only significant double digit growth areas this year (+27%).

You may ask yourself, “So what’s this got to do with me?”

Well that really depends on who you are;

• If you are an IT Contractor or currently on the IT Jobs market, it should be worth your while ensuring that you are adequately up-skilled to sell the benefits of cloud computing and help your clients / potential employers get the maximum benefit from this fantastic service.
• If you are responsible for the IT operations of a business or you a business leader you probably need to start getting familiar with the concept of cloud computing and asking your IT staff / vendors for advice on how you can leverage the benefits on offer.

For everyone involved one of the significant challenges cloud computing faces is that there is no single, standard and comprehensive definition of what exactly cloud computing is, even the wikipedia description of cloud computing seems to change on a regular basis.  To me cloud computing is easiest described as “Computing as a Utility” where you consume flexible computing resources that are provided by third parties, without necessarily having access to, or an understanding of the platforms on which it is based.  Consider it similar to your electricity connection, you connect, consume, get metered and pay for the service used.

So what to do next?

1. We have setup a LinkedIn group for anyone in Ireland who is interested in Cloud Computing from either a technical or a commercial perspective, come and join the Irish Cloud Computing Group.
2. Talk to us here at Verkom, we talk regularly to clients, contractors and candidates who are interested in Cloud Computing, we would love to be of service to you.
3. Go and check out some of the public cloud computing platforms, Amazon AWS in particular is very accessible and starting at 10 cents an hour it won’t break the bank to learn more in a real-time environment.
4. I post regularly about cloud computing on my blog if you want to read more.