Cloud continues to rise. Is anyone surprised?
IT nonprofit CompTIA recently released the results of its Third Annual Trends in Cloud Computing study, which – as one might expect at this point – shows the use of cloud computing among enterprises is still on the up and up.
According to the study, more than 80 percent of businesses are currently using the cloud in some capacity, marking the third straight year this figure has grown. Even more impressive, the study also found that 85 percent of businesses surveyed have positive feelings about the cloud, up from 72 percent in 2011.
This represents an important achievement for the cloud. For years, IT pundits and industry experts have heralded the cloud as a game-changer in the enterprise,
The cloud: Separating fact from fiction
It’s not a bad time to be on the business side of the cloud. In fact, if you keep up with the latest analyst reports and projections, it’s actually a good time to be in the cloud. Gartner’s most recent IT spending report, released earlier this month, predicts cloud spending to nearly double within the next five years, jumping from $109 billion in 2012 to a cool $207 billion in 2016.
Not too shabby.
Of course, it’s not a bad time to be on the customer side of the cloud either. Massive spending growth for the cloud indicates someone must be doing something right.
However, there is still confusion surrounding the cloud. For all its benefits, there are plenty of myths, misconceptions and general misunderstandings about the technology that may hinder businesses from using the cloud to its utmost potential – or in some cases, may lead businesses to develop too high of expectations.
New security practices for a data-centric world
The amount of data that a company now generates on a day-to-day basis is growing at a breakneck pace. According to a 2010 study by IDC and EMC, the so-called digital universe doubles in size every two years. By 2020, the world will generate roughly 50 times the amount of data that it did in 2011. That equals about 90 zettabytes, which is nothing to shake a stick at.
At the same time, much of this information is coming from unstructured sources, like video and social media. Such data holds valuable potential, but it is only effective if a company knows how to handle it properly.