So who is adopting cloud computing? Well, if you include software-as-a-service (SaaS), which has been swept up into the cloud marketing vortex, cloud computing is taking off, I suppose. About 41% of Interop attendees are using SaaS products like Salesforce.com, according to a survey of 104 IT pros conducted at Interop by Network Instruments.

Twenty-nine percent of attendees have deployed a private cloud. I’d be interested in learning from these survey respondents what they mean by a private cloud. I talked to the CIO of a midmarket firm late last year who said he’s basically been running a private cloud out of his data center for six or seven years… long before anyone was talking about the cloud. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

A small number (19%) of respondents said they are actually using the most-hyped of all cloud computing models, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), from providers like Amazon.

So plenty of folks are using some shape or form of cloud computing. Granted some of them might have another name for it: SaaS, ASP, hosted service provider, etc, etc.

What sort of concerns do they have about the cloud? Network Instruments asked their survey respondents about that, too.

• Twenty-two percent say they lack the tools to monitor and manage cloud activity.
• Twelve percent say they are unable to resolve delays caused by cloud providers.
• Twenty-seven percent are worried that cloud computing services will bust their Internet bandwidth budgets.

On the flipside, 33% of respondents see cloud computing as a way to lower infrastructure costs and 30% see it offering them more flexibility to deal with changing business demands.

Seriously, we are in very deep trouble. Getting out of this will require a lot of creativity, and maybe some luck too.

Well you should know that analysts and vendors are lining up to give networking pros advice on how to save money in 2009.

Today I received an invitation from Enterprise Management Associates for a January webinar entitled How to Reduce Network Management Expenses in 2009. EMA vice president Dennis Drogseth will examine how automation and an integrated life cycle approach to network management can reduce costs.

Network Instruments sent us a list of the “Top five ways you can be network hero in 2009.

• Harness the information you have. Network devices have tons of metrics that can provide cheap visibility into your infrastructure. For instance, if you aren’t doing this already, start collecting NetFlow data and aggregate it into some kind of analyzer to get real time stats on you applications.

• Test, test, test. It’s easier to identify and budget for changes to applications before you launch them rather than after. Understand how your apps will run on the systems provided and the network provided before you allow the application team to launch them.

• Prioritizing critical traffic. Instead of spending money to boost bandwidth, set quality of service thresholds for critical apps and allow bandwidth-hogging apps that aren’t as critical wait a little longer.

• Stop throwing bandwidth. Slow application performance isn’t always a network issue. Bring some donuts over to the systems guys and ask them to check on how their servers are performing. Maybe they aren’t configured properly for the applications they are running.

• Anticipate rather than react. Network managers are often in reaction mode, using analysis tools after the network has a problem. Too often they’re waiting for the problem to recur. If you run your tools continuously you can spot network issues before the user experiences them. You’ll spend less time trying to diagnose and fix them. And you’ll have more time to get everything else done.

Info-Tech Research Group has also published a list of Eight Ways to Slash Network and Telecom Costs by Half. I won’t publish them in full since Info-Tech would rather that you spend $195 to get the list from them, but here are a few brief examples of things you can do:

• Buy used networking gear. This market has grown quite a bit over the last few years. Your vendors might not be happy with you for doing this, but they don’t need to know. I plan to write about this next month on SearchNetworking.com.
• Renegotiate telecom and mobile service contracts. If you are in a position to do it, now is a good time to get a better deal from your providers. They’ll be wiling to lower their charges in order to keep your business in these dark times.
• Get rid of T1 lines on your WAN. There are lots of cheaper alternatives out there. See if you can find something that meets your requirements at a lower price.