The recent flurry of consulting company acquisitions focused on cloud computing is another clear indication of the accelerating shift of IT systems and enterprise applications to Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service alternatives.
IT and business decision-makers are no longer asking why they should move to the cloud, but instead are trying to figure out exactly where, when and how to capitalize on the rapidly expanding array of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS options.
Every executive survey shows an overwhelming level of interest in moving IT and business operations to the cloud. Every industry forecast shows cloud service adoption growing rapidly while on-premises systems and software experience declining demand.
While cloud solutions are supposed to be much simpler to deploy and use than legacy on-premises software and systems, the truth is they still require considerable time and effort to properly implement and employ.
Sorting through myriad cloud alternatives to determine which SaaS, PaaS and IaaS solutions are best suited to address a specific organization's needs is a significant task.
In most cases, organizations are not swapping out their old software and systems entirely in favor of a new set of cloud solutions. Instead, they are augmenting the legacy applications and data sources with new cloud services.