Companies of all sizes ready to embrace cloud computing, hosted software

By eddieadams | September 9, 2010

Despite advice from Warren Small of BasisOne to potential investors in hosted software and cloud computing to proceed with caution, it appears as though the enterprise IT market is prepared to adopt cloud services in their entirety. At a recently held conference in the Gauteng province of South Africa, a number of cloud computing experts discussed the cloud and its current place within enterprise IT operations, which is expected to expand rapidly due to cost-saving initiatives and the increased availability of reliable broadband connections, among other factors.

A survey at the event showed a mere 9 percent of attendees use the cloud on a daily basis at work, but the interest surrounding the cloud is growing. In fact, many organizations appear to be at a tipping point and will likely make the move in the near future. For small- and medium-sized businesses with limited IT personnel and infrastructure, outsourcing server support and maintenance to a knowledgeable and reliable vendor can help encourage expansion. Even in a slowly recovering economy, companies want to invest in IT and the cloud offers an option for updates that does require a substantial upfront investment.

However, Small recommends companies ensure their hardware is reliable and capable of performing optimally with several hosted software applications and other cloud services running simultaneously.

"Our message to the market is that it is best to have the appropriate architecture to support cloud computing. The rationale behind this is that by not having adequate architecture in place, the success of cloud computing in business is jeopardized," Small said. For SMBs, a failed IT initiative can be a disaster – especially if failing to secure a new cloud backup server or SaaS application results in data loss. According to HP, 70 percent of SMBs experiencing data loss go out of business within a year of the issue.

For larger companies, managing information has become one of the most important tasks in terms of daily operations. Nearly all aspects of data management and task management, including storage, protection and sharing, are improved with the cloud. Services such as online backup and disaster recovery have been improved with the cloud since companies can store their business-critical information offsite, so it will not be negatively impacted in the event of a natural disaster or other event.

Hosted software has become one of the most popular forms of cloud computing in recent years. In fact, Gartner reported earlier this year 95 percent of companies that use SaaS will expand or maintain their investment through the end of 2010.