If there’s one message that resonated with TMCnet after attending the Cloud Connect conference in Santa Clara, it’s that the cloud is real, and it’s here to stay.
This point was repeatedly driven home by the more than 30 companies TMCnet had the opportunity to meet and speak with during Cloud Connect, an event bringing together the entire cloud ecosystem to better comprehend how companies are addressing the cloud transformation.
Dave Meizlik, vice president of Marketing for cloud security automation company Dome9 (News - Alert), put it perfectly, when he told TMCnet that in addition to security, it’s the “unknown” that continues to challenge the cloud. “It’s a new delivery of infrastructure. People are trying to understand not just what it is, or how it works, but how they should use it,” he told TMCnet last week.
Meanwhile, Dan Letandre, CEO of IGLOO (News - Alert) Software -- a purveyor of social business software-- confidently told TMCnet that the cloud is “inevitable and transformational. Companies are looking for agile ways to get solutions up and running. We can’t rely on IT anymore – a lot of them aren’t built to build solutions.”
Referencing a recent study, Letandre told us it’s the clear the cloud market is growing and is showing no sign of stopping. Compared to 2009 when 1 out of 3 customers weren’t willing to transition to the cloud, now only 1 out of 10 are steadfast on not giving in to this trend.
On the other hand, GigaSpaces (News - Alert), a company specializing in tools for onboarding mission-critical apps to the cloud without the need for a change to infrastructure, is of the belief that it’s often the complexity of transitioning to the cloud that is instilling fear in some businesses.
“The reality is, is people started to use the cloud with the thought it’s going to be simple, scalable and solve all of their problems,” Adi Paz (News - Alert), executive vice president of Marketing & Business Development for the company, told TMCnet. “But, you are still responsible for applications, and the cloud makes things more complex because it’s more dynamic.”
“An HP survey recently said that 90 percent of enterprises responded that they plan to move their mission-critical apps to the cloud in the next two to five years,” he continued. “That’s a strong indication that people accept the cloud as a reality, not as a question of whether they can move, but how and when.”
Cloud Connect may be over, but we’re only on the brink of what’s to come for the cloud. To make some sense of this rather confusing IT roadmap and the “how” of moving to the cloud, Internap (News 
- Alert), a provider of IT infrastructure services for enterprises, will be hosting a webinar on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, on how to optimize your workloads for today and the future by selecting the appropriate IT infrastructure platform.
Paul Carmody, senior vice president of Product Management & Business Development for Internap, will review use cases for collocation, managed hosting, dedicated hosting and the cloud; benefits of interoperability and a hybrid hosting model; and best practices for adapting an IT infrastructure for change.
Don’t miss out – register now!
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 Amanda Ciccatelli
