Cloud Computing and my predictions for 2010

As it has been more then a month since my last post, I thought it would be a good idea switching directions from mobiles applications and taking a look at Cloud Computing.

So what is Cloud Computing? I think of Cloud Computing as a very general and broad term used in the technology industry for anything delivering hosted services over the Internet.

Characteristics normally include being on demand, elastic and fully managed which enables providing the user the ability for having as much service as needed without worry about infrastructure, support or maintenance.

Services provided by the cloud are usually split into three areas –

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), this is usually a service providing virtual servers and storage on demand.  Customer can pay for what they use and it becomes like a utility.  Amazon Web Services is a great example and leader in this space with EC2 which has a per hour pricing model.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is usually a set of development tools and software that is run on servers in the cloud.   Examples of PaaS providers include Force.com, Azure and Google App Engine.    A perceived factor challenging adoption of PaaS is Vendor Lock-in with proprietary development languages but for most this is already an issue for on-premise services anyway.  What is emerging to counter this is Open Platform as a Service – OPaaS that should address some of these concerns.

Software as Service (SaaS) provides the software on demand without the need to host your own platform or web server infrastructure on premise.  More and more businesses are moving to the cloud with CRM/ERP applications.  Salesforce.com is a leader in this space with over 10 years experience in the industry with its SaaS business model others have adopted.

So that should hopefully given you a quick and high level overview of cloud computing from my perspective and so here are my predictions for 2010 in this space –

1) First major outage in the cloud – after seeing gmail go down a few times last year we may see this happen to major cloud computing provider as they experience growing usage and constant platform innovation and refinement.  Even after a major cloud computing outage the service uptime should still beat on premise solutions.

2) Microsoft will become a more serious player in cloud computing – With the launch of Azure Platform and Office Web Apps some businesses might see Microsoft as an easy transition from existing desktop/on-premise services into the cloud.

3) Enterprise Cloud Computing Apps converge with Social Media Technology – 2009 has seen some announcements with Oracle Social CRM and Salesforce.com Chatter so as they are developed and launched this year we will see the real benefits of social media in business applications and further growth and innovation in this space.

4) Rise of the Vertical and Private Cloud – I think 2010 will be the year we see more government and public sector communities build their own cloud computing services.

So 2010 will be an interesting year for Cloud Computing which will continue to evolve faster then ever before and become fundamental to every businesses IT strategy.