There are many myths surrounding cloud computing, with virtualization being the leading myth.  Although a virtualized environment is a component of the cloud infrastructure, traditional virtualization like VMware, hyper-V, and VDI (just to name a few) are components that IT departments utilize within a business. These technologies are used in the cloud as server farms, where hosted services are securely deployed to organizations. Other myths surrounding the cloud are: data ownership, application performance, security, cloud binding contracts, cloud computing is only for SMBs, Cloud computing is always less expensive, etc. With data ownership the key here is to wisely choose the right vendor that fits your firm’s strategy, making certain they are scalable solution(s) that will grow and adapt to your business’ needs.   Application performance depends on many factors, such as the network provider and what technology the vendor uses, but the planning and careful deployment of the application(s) architecture will assist in avoiding performance issues in the cloud.

Security is another leading factor in the cloud decision making process and is a major factor in determining whether or not to move to a cloud based environment. Cloud based companies understand that information is one of the most important assets for a firm and the security behind the cloud must not be ignored. A cloud vendor does not want to lose credibility in the public market place and understands the even the slightest data security breach will damage their reputation. With contracts, you are not locked in forever. Negotiate your contract for a safe exit and migration since you never know when a business will change strategy or move locations. Many cloud companies provide migration tools that help with migrations to other cloud services.  Cloud computing is not just for SMBs -  yes, there are thousands of SMBs using cloud services, but the biggest growth is coming from the enterprise level, and they are using  cloud services anywhere from CRMs to email.  Now for the money portion - cloud services are usually the economical choice, but you have to do careful cost comparison to realize the full cost benefit. Besides the hardware, software, and environmental costs, you must take into account the intangible factors like business revenue gain, uptime, responsiveness of the application or network, and scalability.