BY PETER SILVA, CLoud Computing Journal, 05.07.2010

According to Gartner, “By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets.”  

While the need for hardware will not disappear completely, hardware ownership is going through a transition: Virtualization, total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits, an openness to allow users run their personal machines on corporate networks, and the advent of cloud computing are all driving the movement to reduce hardware assets. 

Cloud computing offers the ability to deliver critical business applications, systems, and services around the world with a high degree of availability, which enables a more productive workforce.  No matter which cloud service — IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS (or combination thereof) — a customer or service provider chooses, the availability of that service to users is paramount, especially if service level agreements (SLAs) are part of the contract.  Even with a huge cost savings, there is no benefit for either the user or business if an application or infrastructure component is unavailable or slow.

As hype about the cloud has turned into the opportunity for cost savings, operational efficiency, and IT agility, organizations are discussing, testing, and deploying some form of cloud computing.  Many IT departments initially...........read more