(The Hosting News) – According to a survey of 150 information technology decision makers from various small and large companies across the country by ReliaCloud, a national IT infrastructure company based in Minneapolis, three-quarters of companies identified the development of cloud computing as a priority for 2010.

The ReliaCloud survey included 150 professionals who held positions of CXOs, owners, president, vice president or technical decision makers. Roughly three-quarters of the decision makers were familiar with cloud computing and identified cloud computing as a priority among their organization’s leadership. A majority (85.3%) of decision makers were either currently implementing cloud computing services or had plans to do so within the next 12 months.
“These findings confirm expert projections that cloud computing is poised to become an inevitable and crucial part of a company’s technology infrastructure,” said Johnny Hatch, Product Manager for ReliaCloud. “More and more companies are realizing the cloud’s potential, not just for protecting data, but also providing better access to it.”

A majority (95.4%) of IT decision makers believed that cloud computing would either radically shift or have a definite impact on how technology services will be provided within their companies. As for the services that would be best suited to cloud computing, the survey indicated that “Web Applications,” “Data Bases” and “Data Storage” topped the list.

Issues like “up time/high availability,”, “performance” and “cost savings” were cited as the top reasons for using cloud computing, while “security” and “support” were cited as the top barriers to adopting the technology.

Cloud Computing is a general technology term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These types of services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service. The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

ReliaCloud retained Evalueserve, an independent research firm, to conduct 150 quantitative interviews and deliver analysis stemming from the aggregated and cross-tabulated data. Evalueserve executed a rigorous selection and screening process to ensure the eligibility of all respondents, and conducted audits and logic tests to validate all the data. Evalueserve is is an accredited member of multiple internationally reputed market research standards organizations. As such, the research was conducted in adherence with well-established industry standards.

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