Enterprise Cloud Computing

The ecosystem of technologies related to the enterprise adoption of cloud computing is constantly evolving. In addition to the three major cloud providers, new ones are emerging from amongst those already in the data center hosting business. Apart from cloud providers, there are also tools to manage combinations of in-house and cloud resources. Similarly, there are frameworks to assist enterprises in creating ‘private’ clouds within their own data centers. As cloud computing matures, many of the concerns surrounding its use for enterprise applications are likely to be addressed. In the meantime, there are a few quick-wins that can result in immediate benefits by leveraging available cloud platforms. In the longer term, cloud computing will itself evolve in hereto unknown directions, and we speculate on a few of these: In particular, the convergence of public and private clouds, and the emergence of ‘cloud-services.’