What's driving this massive shift? Increased flexibility and lower costs are prime motivators. Rapid app development and deployment in the cloud also offer enticing efficiency. The rising use of cloud computing and the cost-monitoring software available enable execs to reduce the waste caused by over-provisioning servers and choosing economically disadvantageous spending plans. Bernard Golden, vice president of enterprise solutions for enStratus Networks, predicted in an article on Computer World that pay-as-you-go services will supplant the flat-rate model of Amazon Web Services (AWS). The transparency of these costs will aid in cloud adoption, Golden predicts.

Maximize External Resources

Removing this waste is a key component of the transformation within IT. Rather than maintaining servers or overseeing a VPS solution, IT's role will change to serving as an interpreter between app developers and organizational departments. Instead of maximizing and balancing internal load, its function will shift to maximizing the external resources found in the company's chosen cloud service. Recognizing the unique advantages found in any diverse offering is a challenging and rapidly moving target, and adapting to these advantages is how IT stands to transform itself. Identifying appropriate and necessary services over gimmicks and technological dead-ends remains a challenge that can only be overcome through research and re-education.

More Than Just Cost Savings

Often, cost savings are less important than the greater benefits provided by a new tool. Cloud services enable businesses to find a faster route to market with a better product. As Scott Bils at CloudAve.com points out, “The real benefit of cloud computing lies in business transformation.” The "product" is unlikely to be any single offering from any single vendor, but a hybrid mix of specialized services and applications. Cloud storage is the fundamental cloud service, and it faces a transformation of its own in the form of solid state drives. Traditional data center provider Equinix is now offering a flash-based array for mission critical data, supported by a integration with AWS for the remainder. Transformation will be eased into through hybrid models and convenient services like this.

For small businesses that migrated away from in-house servers to cloud-based solutions like Google Apps, the savings have been substantial. But the added abilities to collaborate, share, backup and access files has been an empowering and transformative shift in business communication and efficiency. It's reduced hours of expensive tech support previously required to maintain and patch internal servers and cut back on the onsite power needs for those machines. Enhanced features like spam prevention and solid reliability have allowed Gmail to eat the lunch formerly enjoyed by Exchange and RIM. Scaled up to enterprise level, the solutions the cloud will bring to the aging and archaic database systems many industries still employ will similarly open new possibilities and reduce internal business friction.

Re-Engineering the Processes

Traditional vendors are scrambling to launch their own respective cloud product, enabling their own transformations inside their IT departments. Developing private cloud solutions around end-to-end automation is a matter of re-engineering, Golden pointed out. It’s not as simple as fitting a new product into the needs of an organization. Instead, successful companies will build their strategies around the shifting pace of society. Self-described "cloud junkie" Scott Bils noted on LeverHawk.com that cloud, big data, mobility and social media each reinforce the growth and adoption of the others. Each of these technologies could drive a wave of change on its own, but taken together, they are overhauling the enterprise world and driving change at a pace never seen before.

Technical challenges when transitioning to the cloud do exist, of course. The growing pains of security and licensing are fading into the past, only to be replaced by those of scale and economies. These will be introduced through changes in spending, IT staff roles and improved business function. The external impediment of network infrastructure is beginning to open possibilities for small business that would have previously been far too expensive or cumbersome to integrate. The opportunity inside larger organizations lies within the ability to re-imagine workflows and look to cloud developers to create efficient customized applications.

The potential for individual departments to benefit from tailored solutions is an important facet of this transformation. The solutions and problems introduced by this new cloud-based era of computing is set to create new opportunity and re-leveled playing fields for all businesses.

Author Bio
Curtis Walker is from Las Vegas, Nv. He has been working as a photographer and writer since getting his start in 2006 with Jalopnik.com. In addition to this, he  pursues his passions as an artist, actor, father and entrepreneur.