Everyone in the technology world is talking about it ... and a lot of people in the business world are asking the same question, “what is cloud computing and what does it mean for my business?â€

Most IT department are forced to spend a significant portion of their time on frustrating implementation, maintenance and upgrade projects that too often don´t add significant value to the company´s bottom line. Increasingly, IT teams are turning to cloud computing technology to minimize the time spent on lower-value activities and allow IT to focus on strategic activities with greater impact on business.

The cloud is a metaphor for the internet and cloud computing is an emerging computing model in which technology and applications are provided as a service through the internet.

Cloud computing can be divided in two main areas: the services and application cloud and the infrastructure cloud. The service and application cloud will deliver business driven value, mostly with a subscription model based on “pay as you useâ€. The infrastructure cloud will deliver computing capacity, network capacity and storage capacity as needed, a usage model based on “pay as you growâ€. A cloud computing model will drive lower cost-of ownership and enable rapid business innovation by delivering easy-to-use services to users “on demand†regardless of their location or type of device they are using.

Cloud computing is a new paradigm that will change the economics of business which enables faster innovation and lower total cost of ownership  

• - No upfront capital costs
• - Lower operational cost by taking advantage of economies of scale
• - Faster innovation
• - Business agility allowing companies to adapt and scale their business models and markets.

Most enterprises will execute in a hybrid model, integrating cloud services into existing on premise processes and applications (cloud integration imperative)