This was the year that "cloud" went mainstream. In 2012, consumers became aware of Apple's iCloud. Microsoft TV ads included cloud references. Google's online apps such as Gmail proceeded to grow. Outages in the Amazon cloud brought down hugely popular websites such as Netflix and Pinterest.
IT professionals have been thinking cloud computing for a few years, but this year really marked a shift into action, working to operationalize cloud services, secure cloud services and move more and more applications into cloud environments. Our Industry Perspectives guest columnists offered good counsel on many aspects of cloud such as its impact on teams, business implications and best practices. Here's our Top 12 picks of cloud columns for 2012. Enjoy!
- CIO Roles Shifting in Emerging Cloud Landscape - Bryan Doerr of Savvis/CenturyLink, January 4, 2012
- Bandwidth Management, Cloud & the 405 Freeway - Bob Deutsche of Intel, January 6, 2012
- 7 Things Your CEO Should Know About the Cloud - Jason Cowie of Embotics, January 24, 2012
- 5 Reasons to Own Your Cloud - Kent Christensen of Datalink, February 2, 2012
- Cloud Ecosystems, Profitability, Common Sense & the New Order - Bob Deutsche of Intel, February 8, 2012
- Applying Cloud Principles to the Data Center - Ronny Front of Glasshouse Technologies, February 17, 2012
- It's Onward and Upward with Cloud Security - James Greene of Intel, March 14, 2012
- Platform as a Service Ushers In True Private Cloud - Sinclair Schuller of Apprenda, April 10, 2012
- Moving to the Cloud, One App at a Time - Josh Crowe of Internap, April 27, 2012
- Protecting the Cloud: Data Erasure as a Best Practice - Markkku Willgren of Blancco, May 22, 2012
- Understanding the Cloud’s Effect on Facilities Teams - Bill Kleyman of MTM Technologies, June 21, 2012
- Which Cloud Model is Right for Your Company? - Jim Thompson of ViaWest, September 25, 2012
Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library.