Lee Durrant, Resource on Demand's managing director, said that enquiries have been jumping from 3 to 10 per week, which he notes is consistent with anecdotal evidence that shows increasing numbers of organisations placing their reliance in the cloud.
"Cloud computing is now more than a buzz word, organisations are seeing both economic and sound operational reasons to use cloud technology", he said.
"This appealed to organisations during the recession, due to value-for-money paired with an increased level of performance, and continues to appeal to them in the post-recession market place", he added.
According to Rolf von Roessing, international vice president of ISACA, the not-for-profit global association of IT security, audit and governance professionals, the significant rise in staffing requests seen by Resource on Demand during January signals that, after brief gestation, cloud computing is firmly set to take off into the mainstream in 2010.
"The financial and organisational benefits of switching to cloud-based storage and systems are clearly driving this surge in demand, as witnessed by Gartner's recent prediction that, within the next four years, 20 per cent of firms will have no appreciable local resources as a result from switching," he said.
"It's important, however, that in the rush to embrace the obvious benefits of the cloud, businesses do not overlook the security implications of extending their IT resource into what is, to all intents and purposes, a virtual environment", he added.
Von Roessing says that business and IT managers should take the time to review their security systems and resources, and ask themselves whether their information security management can effectively defend their data and other assets in the cloud.
And, even if an initial budget to extend and enhance a firm's IT security resources to fully support the cloud is not apparently available, IT managers should not lose sight of the possibility that some of the direct cost savings that arise from cloud migration can be invested in security facilities, he explained.
Von Roessing, said that, in May of last year, ISACA joined the Cloud Security Alliance to promote good practices on the cloud security front, as well as publishing a white paper – Cloud Computing: Business Benefits With Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives – which provides a road map for developing positive and secure relationships with cloud providers.
"As new computing functions and services appear in what will undoubtedly be the year of the cloud, it is important that IT professionals remain vigilant about the security implications of what is set to become a rapidly-changing IT landscape," he said.