Enterprises say they are already doing cloud computing

The hottest technology appears to be the cloud, but no one is really sure what that means

(Posted by Cisco Subnet editor Julie Bort while Jim Duffy is on vacation.) Cloud computing is already in the enterprise, says a study of 250 companies commissioned by F5 Networks. More than 80 percent of respondents said that they were in at least in trial stages for public and private cloud computing deployments. Interestingly enough, the study also showed that most of them weren't entirely sure what the term cloud computing means (although they seemed to know they were doing it).

The full study is actually a pretty interesting read (if you are a fan of research reports.) The survey targeted the right IT people, IT managers or directors of networks, security, architecture or development. All companies had at least 2,500 employees. F5 notes these survey results:

• Half of respondents reported that they have already deployed a public cloud computing implementation.
• 45 percent of respondents said they are currently using private clouds.
• 66 percent of respondents said hey have a dedicated budget for cloud computing initiatives.

But then again, the study found that no one could really define cloud computing. Researchers tested six industry definitions and respondents told them none of them were just right. They generally agreed that cloud computing was more than just Software as a Service, though that was a big component. Most would agree that cloud computing includes some kind of stake in hosted hardware.

By the time the industry decides, adoption rate will no doubt be at 100%, because you apparently don't need to know where or what the cloud is, to know you want to deploy it.

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