This article originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.

A recurring theme as it relates to cloud communications has to do with the resiliency and reliability of the cloud. Indeed, INTERNET TELEPHONY’sown cover in July of 2011 asked the question: Can We Trust the Cloud? The answer was, and is, that the cloud is just as reliable – in fact, probably even better – than other forms of IT delivery.

Cory von Wallenstein, chief technology officer at Dyn (News - Alert), in a recent interview with this magazine noted that no one is afraid of using Salesforce or other cloud-based solutions, and that cloud technology will only continue to go deeper in the market as time moves on.

North Bridge Venture Partners in June unveiled new research in which 50 percent of respondents stated their belief that the cloud makes sense even for their most important business applications.

“Our second annual survey has revealed that companies are growing increasingly confident in the cloud,” said Michael Skok, partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. “While agility and scalability continue to be primary drivers for cloud adoption, IT decision makers are beginning to trust the cloud with more mission-critical applications like eCommerce. Furthermore, the identification of ‘cloud formations’ around the hottest business trends including big data and analytics by both vendors and IT decision makers alike highlights new opportunities for cloud.”

A recent Host Analytics/Dimensional survey, meanwhile, indicates that CIOs are bullish on the cloud, with 92 percent expressing an understanding as to its business benefits. Additionally, 67 percent of those surveyed said cloud technologies help IT deliver better systems for less money, and 62 percent said SaaS (News - Alert) applications give business stakeholders more ownership of key applications.

Breaking it down by department, IT folks are the most excited about the cloud, with two-thirds of them saying cloud offers financial benefits. About a third of those in sales and customer support are also keen on the cloud, according to the survey.

Already some of tech’s major businesses like Twitter and Zynga rely on cloud infrastructure, said the CTO for Dyn, whose customers include such well-known brands as Etsy (News - Alert), Pandora, Twitter and Zappos.

Twitter had been looking to build data center and aimed to put its entire infrastructure in that one location in Utah, but the company couldn’t route enough power for that one site. As a result, Twitter had to instead put that infrastructure closer to users around in the world, and cloud technology allowed them to do that.

Zynga (News - Alert), meanwhile, is leveraging its own cloud infrastructure to run its core business, and uses Amazon’s cloud to test new ideas. If new applications and features go viral, Zynga then moves them over to its own cloud infrastructure.

A website called CloudBlueprint reports that “Zynga uses Cloud.com (now owned by Citrix) for its private cloud infrastructure, as well as RightScale as a management layer that makes for a uniform experience in terms of managing both public and private resources.”

The piece goes on to say that “Amazon’s EC2 cloud lets Zynga scale elastically and determine average traffic load and other metrics, so that it can optimize its internal infrastructure for each game’s specific needs.”