March - 2013 - issue > View Point

2013 Cloud Predictions: We will Finally Get Real About Cloud

James Staten

, Vice President & Principal Analyst,-Forrester Research

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Forward

At the end of 2012 there was one clear takeaway about the cloud computing market — enterprise use has arrived. Cloud use is no longer solely hiding in the shadows, IT departments are no longer denying it's happening, and legitimate budgeting around cloud is now taking place.

According to the latest Forrsights surveys, nearly half of all enterprises in North America and Europe will set aside budget for private cloud investments in 2013 and nearly as many software development managers are planning to deploy applications to the cloud.

So what does that mean for the coming year? In short, cloud use in 2013 will get real. We can stop speculating, hopefully stop cloudwashing, and get down to the real business of incorporating cloud services and platforms into our formal IT portfolios. Here is what we expect to happen when enterprise gets real about cloud in 2013:

1. We will finally stop saying that everything is going cloud, and get real about what fits and what does not. We now have enough understanding about what makes cloud platforms different from traditional virtual infrastructures and traditional hosting environments to make architecturally sound decisions about which applications to move to the cloud.

2. Cloud and mobile will become one. What's the value of a mobile app that does not call out through the Internet to back-end services? Not much. More often than not, we are finding mobile applications connected to cloud-based back-end services that can elastically respond to mobile client engagements and shield your data center from this traffic.