Several cloud barriers expected to fall in 2012, expert says

Many industry experts have proclaimed 2012 as "the year of the cloud," but ZDNet writer Alan Priestly painted a more realistic picture regarding the technology, which is expected to garner greater adoption.

According to the reporter, some barriers companies faced last year regarding the cloud should fade this year and more organizations are expected to adopt the solutions moving forward.

"History shows that the IT industry can solve security problems and inspire trust, and it will do so again for the cloud," wrote Priestly. "There’s a lot of fear of the dark, but technology solutions already out there, and those in development, can provide the appropriate light."

The writer also indicated that some potential issues, such as standardization of the cloud, are already being addressed by some organizations, including the Open Data Center Alliance.

One IT development that is not expected to slow is the proliferation of electronic data, which can be addressed by cloud computing. Cloud-based email archiving solutions allow organizations to take advantage of its unlimited storage capacity so they can house all of their email, documents, instant messages and other attachments in an effective manner.