ReadWriteCloud

IDC reported today that the majority of business workers use the social Web at least once a week.

Social computing and the cloud are becoming equally integral in the enterprise. IDC makes the point that if social computing represents the new business process then cloud computing is the delivery mechanism.

Virtualization technology can improve the cost efficiency of the data center by running servers at higher utilization. Deploying virtual servers can yield a more energy efficient data center and reduce the total footprint of a computing environment.

Although IT managers have started adopting virtualization for critical infrastructure, reports such as the poll conducted by Network Instruments in 2009 and reported on by Information World suggest that many IT managers could not confirm that they got the expected savings by virtualizing their environment. In that context, it is very nice to report that all of the key virtualization software vendors provide free or low-cost solutions that can be deployed and managed by IT teams. These solutions can be deployed in production environments so that teams can get started and determine for themselves if it is appropriate for their environment to host applications on virtual servers.

Driving the enterprise this year is a quest for efficiency and flexibility. To determine the actual direction, one needs quantifiable information that proves certain trends have merit.

The want ads are a great resource for seeing what types of investments are being made by companies. This year, people with virtualization skills are in big demand, followed by -you guessed it - cloud computing.

One of the fun things about being a leader in IT is the opportunity to see new technology and explain it to others for the first time. We love to see people's eyes get big and excited when some new wizardry is introduced and we're the first one to explain it.

In the simplest terms, a key outcome of virtualization that the virtual engine software layer divides either hardware or software into more pieces than originally existed. Instead of one operating system running, the same hardware can run several concurrently. For example, these can even be of different flavors such as Linux and Windows running on the same Intel hardware. Where it gets interesting is that each additional system running doesn't divide computing power in half, like you might expect. Instead, an overall gain in system utilization is found in this approach. This "unused" power frees computing resources without the need to procure new hardware.

Virtualization and cloud computing are the top priorities for CIOs, according to a study by Gartner. The study is more proof that despite modest IT spending, virtualization and cloud computing continue to attract keen interest from executive management.

Gartner expects IT budgets to be essentially flat in 2010. Despite this, a shift is occurring that will shape IT structure for many years to come. According to the survey of 1,600 CIOs, the big shift is the result of the recession.

Crowdsourcing is the outsourcing of work to a large community of people. The size and quality of Wikipedia and open source projects like Linux and Wordpress are a testament to what crowdsourcing can accomplish.

But what if you do not have a community ready to show up for work? Luckily there are Web services like Mechanical Turk and LiveWorks that can help broker tasks with people who will do them for money.

In a Feb. 13 report, Gartner estimates 20% of businesses will get rid of all IT assets as they move to cloud.

Although costs and IT asset reduction are important benefits, the most important driver behind the move to the cloud is convenience. The ability to spin up new services on a whim, without waiting to procure and configure gear is a major win for the business leader who is trying to react to all of the opportunities to leverage computing to run a business.

Luckily, we aren't in the business of trying to figure out what exactly is up Apple's sleeve at the upcoming Jan. 27 event at Yerba Buena Gardens. Much speculation has surfaced in recent weeks on what products and services will announced.

Now, in addition to the iTablet madness, new information comes in the form of several reports that Apple is set to announce a cloud-based music service. This will likely incorporate its recent purchase of the Lala application with Apples' hardware and iTunes empire, bringing a ray of hope that iTunes will become more social - as suggested by ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez nearly two years ago.

The term cloud is widely used to refer to a whole family of products and services offered by many companies across the Web. So many in fact, that the term has become overloaded, meaning many things to many different people.

Some critics say that the cloud is nothing new. They argue that it is a marketing buzzword being applied to things that have been around for a long time.

What kind of friend would you be if you kept the powers of virtualization all to yourself? Something this good needs to be shared, but if your friends are non-technical, you have to get over the hurdle of explaining it to them.

Try this: "It's a computer simulator." In the same way a flight simulator provides a pretend jumbo jet to play with, virtualization software provides a simulated computer to use. And like with a physical plane, there are many things you can do with virtual machines (VMs) that physical ones cannot do.

Here are four cool tricks you can use to explain virtualization: