Infrastructure Slideshow:
Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Is Yours Fully Leveraged?

Despite growing corporate adoption of cloud computing, many organizations are not fully leveraging the cloud infrastructure they have implemented, according to a survey of 100 senior-level IT professionals. The survey was conducted in December 2010 by Electric Cloud, a provider of cloud development products, and Osterman Research, an IT research firm. The results show that slightly more than half of respondents using private or public cloud computing have cloud infrastructure resources that are rarely or never used. Many respondents report some or lots of excess capacity. Even so, companies will continue to increase spending on cloud computing, according to the survey. Among respondents that have implemented cloud computing, spending on cloud-based infrastructure averaged $23.31 per employee in 2010, and that amount is expected to increase in the next 12 months. "Cloud computing is increasingly an essential component of many organizations' computing resources, and it will become more important in the future," says Michael Osterman, founder of Osterman Research. "However, a variety of barriers need to be overcome for use of the cloud in software development environments if the cloud is to reach its full potential and provide a better, faster and less expensive environment in which to develop and test software."