Cloud Computing is not only a buzzy trend in Enterprise IT world, but only a true revolution, particularly for SMBs which can reduce rapidly their hardware and IT services TCO.

Cloud Computing delivers the possibility for companies to outsource their IT, and adopt an « IT as a service » or « Software as a service » approach: you entrust specialized companies for the – often burdensome – management of your servers and associated software. These companies offer on demand and low cost rental of their hardware and software resources, hosted in gigantic datacenters.

Cloud Computing resolves transparently IT problems which were until then managed by companies themselves (although it is not their core business), like data backups and DRP design (some companies have not even taken time to care about their DRP): all data stored in the Cloud are replicated several times into several datacenters located on different continents. Without Cloud Computing, few companies could afford such a good level of data protection.

Cloud Computing solves data related issues...

• high availability,
• virtually infinite storage (thanks to « pay-as-you-go » approach, you only pay per consumed gigabyte hour),
• security (datacenters are certified with strict norms: SOX, SAS70)

...and computation related issues...

• virtualliy infinite computation resources (« pay-as-you-go »: you only pay per consumed processor hour)
• server sizing to absorb load.

Virtual machines rented by Cloud Computing providers, and hosted in their datacenters (scattered worldwide), can start in a few minutes.

This fundamental aspect offers unbeatable flexibility, test capacity and load scaling, as opposed to "classical" Web hosting providers or "classical" dedicated servers.

For companies, moving into the Cloud can be progressive by preliminary testing phases (so that going back is allowed in case of difficult adoption); many servers available today on site can be suppressed one by one, thanks to their « Cloud equivalent ».