The Basics of Cloud Computing.

What is cloud computing and how can an organization decide whether to adopt it? Cloud computing is a distributed computing paradigm that focuses on providing a wide range of users with distributed access to scalable, virtualized hardware and/or software infrastructure over the internet. Despite this rather technical definition, cloud computing is in essence an economic model for a different way to acquire and manage IT resources. An organization needs to weigh the cost, benefits, and risks of cloud computing in determining whether to adopt it as an IT strategy. This paper seeks to help organizations understand cloud computing essentials, including drivers for and barriers to adoption, in support of making decisions about adopting the approach. Cloud computing is a paradigm for large-scale distributed computing that makes use of existing technologies such as virtualization, service-orientation, and grid computing. It offers a different way to acquire and manage IT resources on a large scale. A simple example of cloud computing is webmail. The webmail provider maintains the server space and provides access; the webmail user just plugs a web address into a browser and submits user information to access an account. There is growing interest in cloud computing from consumers and providers. For example, cloud service spending worldwide rose by over 20% in 2009 according to onCloudComputing.com, in a year when overall IT spending dropped by about 4%. 1 As of 2010, most cloud consumers are small enterprises, but large enterprises are exploring the paradigm. Input, the leading authority on government business, says that federal government spending on cloud computing will grow by a 27% compound annual growth rate between 2009 and 2014. 2 Overall, Gartner predicts that by 2012 one in five businesses will not own its own IT assets ; one reason for this trend is the move toward cloud computing as a means to reduce IT hardware costs. 3 More adopters will result in more people seeing savings and thus working to reduce barriers to adoption. The growth in cloud com