The cloud is not cool anymore. It no longer has the aura of something cosmic. It’s mainstream.

That’s evident in a few ways:

• Citing the 2012 Future of Cloud Survey, sponsored by North Bridge Venture Partners, Barb Darrow points out that users accept that mission-critical apps will go the way of the cloud.
• Software-as-a-Service is more widely accepted. According to Gartner, SaaS and cloud-based services are forecast to grow in usage, expanding from 11 percent of enterprise application spending in 2010 to 16 percent in 2015.
• Security is still a concern but users are getting beyond FUD.  Core security services are emerging. We are starting to see security becoming part of the DevOps movement and inceasingly built into the application itself. New technologies such as what Bromium announced today points to a future in which security is automated.

I think that’s a good thing.

It’s time to turn attention to the users and how they now plan to use it.

This changes the dynamics of the conversation. CIOs know enough now to start making decisions. Now we can start learning from them and get a real sense of what they plan to do.

It’s funny. I had this conversation with a big data consultant based out of Washington, DC. He works with federal government agencies. He said they don’t talk about the cloud anymore. They do talk about big data and mobile. They have a deep interest in using Hadoop. That is forcing them to make business decisions about how to manage their infrastructure. Ironically, that means thinking through how to use horizontally, scaled out infrastructures.  In other words – the cloud.

At Intel’s Open Data Center Alliance Forecast event, the conversation focused less on what the cloud is but instead how it should be managed, its industrialization, security, standards and so forth. For reference, The presentations are now on Slideshare.

I will look forward to seeing what companies get it right and those that don’t. I’ll folow Mark Thiele’s advice: align technical solutions, people, and process. So when a business opportunity presents itself, your processes and technology will seamlessly keep pace with the natural development of the initiative.

Here’s his list:

• Can you use a mix of external providers such as Amazon EC2, TerreMark, Savvis, and CSC?
• Easily change from HP to Cisco hardware (or vice versa)?
• Switch from VMWare to HyperV 3 (or vice versa)?
• Can you easily adopt a new provisioning/scripting framework like chef/puppet/cfengine?
• Reuse the policy enforcement and auditing system you currently have while making any of the changes above?
• Reuse your procurement portal and provisioning workflows while achieving the above?

The cloud is not cool anymore. It’s just the reality.