Apica Systems may be a great judge for what companies crashed and burned on the “Website Red Carpet” in 2011, but the load testing company is looking to be a pretty good arbitrator for what’s ahead in the cloud space for 2012.

From cloud computing and cloud storage, to cloud business solutions and cloud-based mobile tools, many industry insiders have already casted their votes to how all aspects of the cloud will pan out over the next year and beyond. So, how do predictions for cloud optimization – or the ability for websites to handle large loads of capacity and traffic – stack up?

"The explosion of Web applications and websites moving to the cloud has caused a significant amount of problems with regards to capacity and performance. And, not all services have fully kept pace with the demand in terms of performance and reliability," said Sven Hammar, web optimization expert and CEO at Apica. "In 2012, the testing and performance market will take excellence and stability to a new level. Tuning, scaling and other queuing systems for extreme traffic will be critical for any successful company doing business online and in the cloud."

After talking with customers, partners, analyst and industry through-leaders, here is what Hammar had to say about load testing and its effect on the cloud:

Social media will move to .Net

In 2011, social media set the stage for the Internet’s overall Web traffic, and 2012 will be no difference. The Web optimization expert predicts much of this typical social manifestation will be transitioned to Microsoft’s .Net this year. In moving to this software framework – which delivers a programming model for building applications with visually-appealing user experiences and secure communication – more and more companies will turn to using product demonstrations and other such interactive and visual forums to showcase their goods.

Guaranteed load times and transfer speeds

According to Apica, there are currently no cloud providers in today’s market that can offer an accurate, true indication of a company’s applications, or guarantees for load times and transfer speeds. But, all that is about to change in 2012, when one of the five giant cloud providers will finally provide both guarantees and independent validation of performance. Once this occurs, Apica predicts this will soon reach applications and services, with no excuse for cloud “uptime” to occur.

Performance is in WebSocket

In 2012, Apica projects more and more companies will hop on the WebSocket bandwagon in order to achieve exceptional performance. For those unfamiliar, WebSocket is a relatively new technology used for bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels that occurs over one TCP socket. WebSocket will become an alternative to HTTP for updating real-time graphs and handling large volumes of transactions.

HTML 5, HTML 5, HTML 5!

We heard a ton about HTML 5 in 2011, and it’s no secret it will come handy for website performance. According to Apica, HTML 5 will introduce an improved way for working with Web applications, which, for the most part, will make good use of HTML 5’s features, local storage, computing capabilities and WebSocket support.

Buh-bye, Flash?

If Flash were in a popularity contest, it would certainly not fare well, as Apple and Microsoft (News - Alert) have already strongly voiced their opposition to this technology. While it’s fate is yet to be determined, Apica predicts Flash’s demise may be nearer than we think, with 2012 being the year that many cloud and Web developers veer farther and farther away.

So, how spot-on do you think Apica is in its predictions for Web optimization? It will be interesting to see how this highly-talked-about space will pan out.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.

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Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jamie Epstein