How the Cloud Is Driving Business Transformation

The use of cloud computing applications and services will continue to increase dramatically in the next two years and will change how companies do business. A new survey of hundreds of Verizon Enterprise Solutions customers shows that more than half reported using the cloud for many mission-critical workloads and about half expect to be running three-fourths of their workloads in the cloud by 2018. Additionally, companies are adopting many flavors of cloud. They are "combining public, private and on-premises infrastructure to create highly sophisticated, customized environments," the report reads. "These environments can provide the ideal mix of performance and flexibility. This can enable even the most established organization to do things in new ways, and disrupt even the most entrenched industry." For solution providers, the implications are clear: A massive shift in where application workloads will be deployed is well underway. While solution providers may need to adjust their business models as a result, as cloud computing adds more complexity into the IT environment, there will be more demand for their expertise to manage it. We look at key takeaways from the report.