As 2011 draws to an end, it’s impossible not to wonder what the New Year has in store. Without getting into the usual prognostications, the question of what’s in store for cloud computing is inevitable.

For two to three years, the IT industry has talked up the cloud, and vendors such as Microsoft and IBM have been touting their cloud-focused technology. Elsewhere, technology that was available over the Internet has become cloud technology. So you see Salesforce.com and Amazon reposition themselves as cloud vendors for services that in some cases already were available before all the talk about the cloud.

In other words, for years you could get services over the Web that now are considered “cloud,” so what exactly, then, is the difference and why all the discussion?

The difference, as I see it, is businesses are coming to a point now where they have to decide whether to replace technology fundamental to their operations with cloud services, as opposed to just using a cloud-based application or two.

The very data you store in the cloud could be the data that saves your business it you ever have to recover it following a catastrophic event.

A lot of companies already have embraced the remote storage and backup services that now are usually referred to as cloud storage. But as fundamental as storage and backup are, I would hazard to guess a lot of businesses still view it as more of a side thing you don’t think about (which is precisely why a remote or cloud approach is ideal).

It’s easier to move something to the cloud that you think about much, anyway. Now comes the trickier question of whether companies are willing to trust the productivity applications they use daily to what, let’s face it, to many people is still an abstraction.

And that, I believe, is the question that more and more decision makers will grapple with in 2012. They’ll be bombarded with marketing from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and companies they haven’t even heard about to make a leap to the cloud. And if you work with an IT services provider, chances are the provider will be pushing cloud services as well.

Of course, you’ll wonder about reliability and security as you weigh the pros and cons of cloud. And those are legitimate worries. But when you think about it, if you already use cloud data backup and trust your data to sit out there, isn’t it time to consider other cloud services as well? Remember, the very data you’ve agreed to store in the cloud could be the data that saves your business it you ever have to recover it following a catastrophic event.

And that’s some food for thought as you enjoy your holidays. Happy New Year!

Thinking about the cloud but not quite sure what to do? You are not alone. Thousands of businesses across the land have been bombarded with advertising about the cloud, how it can save you money and how you won’t be able to live without it.

The truth is cloud computing is definitely worthy of consideration by any business with an IT strategy, no matter how big or small the company. It would be negligent, bordering on criminal even, to not at least consider available cloud choices and which legacy computing resources you would be better off replacing with cloud-based applications.

However, before you start ripping out applications and equipment from your office, you should take a few things into consideration regarding cloud offerings. Chief among those considerations are the cloud vendor, its track record and whether the vendor’s offerings are a good fit for your IT needs.

It would be negligent, bordering on criminal even, to not at least consider available cloud choices

You see, everybody is a cloud vendor today. But it wasn’t long ago that some vendors that claim they are cloud leaders thought about clouds only when the sky was grey. So it’s important to do your research.

Read up on the products and consult with your IT provider to learn if the cloud-based applications you are considering have been around a while, whether they are known to cause more problems than they solve, and whether they have a good security track record. Based on the information you gather, think hard about whether the application or solution still looks like the right choice for your specific requirements.

Regarding the latter, you must take into consideration your current infrastructure and whether to invest in upgrades. Do you have enough bandwidth to handle additional Internet-based resources? Is your network architecture set up for cloud-based computing? Should you can a physical server or two and replace them with a virtual server?

What about data backup and recovery? How have you handled that essential piece of your IT environment, and should you move it to the cloud?

And, of course, there are budget considerations. While it may make sense to move most, or all, of your IT to a cloud-based environment, your budget may restrain you from doing so just yet. But you might be able to take a step now, be it deployment of a business application or backup and recovery, to be followed by others later.

The cloud looms ahead, and you’re bound to feel pressure to jump on it. And while your business likely will benefit from the cloud, you ought to make cloud computing decisions methodically and add cloud resources gradually.

In blogs to come, we’ll explore the plethora of cloud choices available out there, how virtualization fits into this whole cloud thing, and what to watch out for in terms of security. It’s going to be a good ride, so climb aboard the Clouds Ahead blog.