Cloud plays an integral role in information technology operations for all varieties of business, providing new opportunities and capabilities previously unavailable.

Recently, CompTIA, a nonprofit IT industry trade association, released their annual “Trends in Cloud Computing” study of 500 U.S. business and IT professionals involved in IT decision making roles. The results showed that more than 8 in 10 of the companies already use a cloud solution and more than half are planning to increase their investments by 10% this year.

42% of IT management stated that cloud would provide a relatively painless path to modernizing their IT systems – “relatively” and “painless” are the key words here.  There are two parts to cloud, yes it provides the dynamic infrastructure many IT departments have been searching for, but the other half is the headache of migrating all your company’s data and applications into the new infrastructure.

This headache is not unknown to many service providers who have made it a priority to find the easiest possible way to deploy new services. Despite this drawback, cloud has a lot of benefits. With 44% of IT management saying they feel as if cloud is a better option for their business, they’re correct.

Dan Chenok, Executive Director for IBM’s Center for the Business of Government recently testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet, sharing what he thinks are the top 5 benefits cloud can bring an organization:

1.   Cost Saving:
50% of the CompTIA respondents are looking to the cloud to reduce their costs, and they’re on the right path. Customers pay for cloud resources as they consume. This usage can be monitored, controlled, and reporting in a transparent way for both providers and consumers of the services.

2.   Increased Effectiveness
Network outages are costly and damaging. Cloud computing offers a highly stable and agile environment where consumers can immediately respond to emergency situations by transferring IT services to unaffected areas.

3.   Optimized Computing Usage
Today’s data centers are never at full computing capacity with only a small fraction being used at any time. Cloud increases capacity by enabling flexible scaling, in turn making it incredibly cost-effective.

4.   Energy and Environmental Improvements
The cloud is green. It decreases electricity use, reduces carbon emissions, and cuts IT costs by use of computer and network infrastructure.

5.   Innovation and Transformation
Cloud can foster innovation and business transformation a number of ways.  Increased collaboration, mobility, and the ability for application developers to quickly roll out products using cloud solutions are ways companies can enter new lines of business or reshape an existing industry.

Previous to the advent of cloud, advanced technologies were unattainable to small businesses because of the price range or limited skill sets.

Seth Robinson, director at CompTIA in a recent article said, “[It] is leveling the playing field by making access to high-tech tools of the trade more affordable…The option for cloud solutions for various parts of the computing stack is opening doors for IT professionals to perform new tasks, or at least perform old tasks in new ways. It’s also creating new job roles and functions to more tightly integrate IT teams with lines of business.”

So no matter the size of your company, cloud is here to stay with 85% of the survey respondents reporting a more positive cloud outlook than last year. So you can try and beat ‘em, or join ‘em – and from what I hear the air is much better up there.