Wikibon Blog

I would correct this and say that cloud computing is not limited to services hosted over the Internet, but also to the point of the diagrams, to deliver of applications over both private network WANs as well as the hybrid WAN/Internet model as well.
Contrary to popular perception, it appears that a fully-hosted cloud computing model will be more widely adopted by small businesses in certain verticals first – eliminating the need for CapEx Expenditures that can drain the smaller IT Budgets.
Applications can be hosted, compressed and delivered thin via a Citrix-type model very efficiently on a monthly recurring “per seat” charge, and that is where IT Staff is at risk of being replaced, given the short complexity of the model.
The main concern here is around security and connectivity – with 5 9′s SLA’s in the market today and the erosion of the “dedicated” internet price per meg, it is easy for a small enterprise to sign up for around $1000/month and ditch the $40K plus benefits IT Administrator expense.
On the other hand, Enterprise Customers typically balance CapEx and OpEx dollars relative to achieving a desired EBITDA, and have more resources embedded in their IT Shops, so they typically take a hybrid approach – continuing investment and ownership of mission critical applications while testing less critical traffic “in the cloud”.
Companies should be focused on getting their networks optimized – “cloud ready” if you will – so they can adopt the technologies as they are evaluated and vetted to implement as production traffic for their business.
Cost and performance are the top two criteria and can be measured in terms of pure data reduction as well as increased performance – or speed – of the network.
I work with customers every day with the goal to maximize results achieved through WAN Acceleration, Application & Network Performance Management and SIP/VoIP Selection/Implementation.
The market trend toward Data Center Collaboration and Cloud Computing is here – who you trust to help you in getting there is a challenge all organizations face.