This represents more than current strength, but also a trend. Back in 2007, virtualization ranked as number five and cloud computing wasn’t even on the list included in the survey. In 2009, cloud computing entered the survey at number 16 and virtualization had risen to the number 3 spot.
Think about that. After not being on the radar screen at all, in just one year, cloud computing had risen 14 spots in the CIOs’ rankings of high priority technologies to grab the number two spot.
Market numbers bear out the growing importance of cloud computing. A May 11, 2010 InformationWeek article, Cloud Computing Use Increases With Improving Economy, reported that, “Server revenue for private cloud computing will grow to $11.8 billion in 2014 from $7.3 billion in 2009, IDC predicted in a report released Monday. The much smaller public cloud market is also expected to grow significantly, rising to $718 million from $582 million during the same timeframe.”
On June 22, 2010, an InformationWeek article reported that Gartner, Inc. had predicted that sales of global cloud services would grow 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, from $58.6 billion in 2009 to $68.3 billion in 2010. Furthermore, Gartner predicted that this growth would continue, with global cloud services revenue amounting to about $148.8 billion in 2014.
This is not to say that cloud computing will fully replace traditional IT technologies any time soon—if ever. In its Directions 2010 presentation, IDC predicted that in 2013 81 percent of server expenditures and 68 percent of server units will still be dedicated to traditional IT techniques, with only 14 percent of server expenditures and 23 percent of the server units being used for private clouds and five percent of server revenues and nine percent of units going to public clouds.

How much of your infrastructure is in the cloud? Do you have current plans to increase that?