How cloud is paving the way to smarter computing

Cloud-based technologies can help enterprises cut costs and meet new business challenges

The modern IT professional faces a pair of distinct challenges, which at first glance appear to require two distinct and opposite approaches to providing services.

The first is a need to meet constantly evolving business challenges in order to remain competitive in the fast-moving and often cutthroat world of the enterprise. The second concern involves driving the costs out of business, allowing more to be done with less.

For many, remaining competitive while cutting costs at the same time sounds like a far-fetched goal, but that's the promise of cloud computing, which is increasingly finding its way into the enterprise, and bringing efficiency and cost-saving benefits with it.

Computing research recently asked a number of IT professionals if and how their organisation is using the cloud. Out of the 100 respondents, over 80 per cent said their business has deployed some sort of cloud solution, demonstrating how attitudes to the technology have changed as organisations recognise its business potential.

Of those surveyed by Computing, 22 per cent have built their own private cloud for a specific purpose, with just three per cent using a public cloud service. However, by far the most deployed cloud option is a hybrid solution, combining elements of the public and the private cloud, with 33 per cent of respondents revealing that their organisation has adopted this method.

The numbers demonstrate what has been a big shift towards acceptance of the cloud in recent years, as the technology allows customers to optimise resources and meet the storage needs required for supporting growth, all while driving down the IT costs thanks to the efficiencies of the cloud over traditional solutions.

Embracing forms of smarter computing such as the cloud and virtualisation is not only allowing organisations to cut costs, but also boost efficiency as cloud, in many cases, allows employees to access essential documents and tools from any location, be they in the office, at home or anywhere in between.

Smarter working initiatives are an example of the way that cloud-based tools can drive business efficiencies. Organisations can also free IT staff from tedious operations and maintenance tasks, which can consume more than 70 per cent of the typical corporate IT budget.

For the latest information on the best practices for cloud computing adoption, download this IBM whitepaper from Computing Resources.