What is Utility Computing

Cloud computing is synonymous with outsourced data center management and agile solution architecture that improves the scalability for delivery of services for enterprises. It has the capability to revolutionize how data is delivered from commodity to Information Technology as a service. At its core, Cloud computing is a new approach to distributed computing and shared pooling of IT infrastructure linked together to offer centralized IT services on demand. Companies that provide Cloud computing services manage multiple virtualized computation systems that allow for dynamic on-demand provisioning of IT delivery as services. This chapter presents a study of the factors that influence the adoption of Cloud computing in enterprises based on managements' perception of security, cost-effectiveness, and IT compliance. The results of a linear regression analysis testing are presented, which indicate that managers' perceptions of cost-effectiveness and IT compliance are more significantly correlated to the enterprise adoption of Cloud computing than security.