2010 will be remembered as the breakthrough of cloud computing. This was the year people gained a shared understanding of the concept, and most major players were investing heavily into its expected transformative effects. Nobody personify the rise of the cloud hype more than Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. Entering 2010 he was known to ridicule cloud computing in public rants. On the eve of the year he is transformed like a born-again evangelist - incredible what change increased corporate IT spending can accomplish…

Mr Ellison’s new message is getting pretty close to what is being defined as Hybrid Cloud. Hybrid Cloud means infrastructure and architecture that seamlessly integrate on-premise IT assets and new public cloud offerings. The big potential in this is that it allows enterprise to take an evolutionary approach to cloud computing, minimizing risk and maximizing value of existing IT assets.

I think these concepts will mature and prevail in 2011. Microsoft is investing heavily in architectures that allow Windows Azure to become an integrated extension of on-premise data centers. The resulting architecture leverage AppFabric and Windows Azure Connect as an enabling service bus technology. A big value driver is the potential of integrating SaaS-based offerings directly with on-premise IT.

Through our leadership on Windows Azure we at Ethos are already involved in some early cases that build on these new technologies. With this we plan to take a leading role in breaking the Hybrid Cloud market in 2011!