Cloud services is a hot topic. Whether it is cloud storage, server capacity, or software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud services offer significant benefits to businesses and there is significant interest in learning about these offerings. This week IDC updated their definition of cloud services and they did a great job of explaining the attributes you can expect from a company with these types of offerings.

Their most basic definition of cloud services is as follows:

“Consumer and business products, services and solutions delivered and consumed in real-time over the Internet”

They go onto explain the key attributes of a cloud-based solution:

• Shared, standard service
• Solution-packaged
• Self-service
• Elastic scaling
• Use-based pricing
• Accessible via the Internet/IP
• Standard UI technologies
• Published service interface/API

These types of solutions can be delivered in either public or private clouds.

The most interesting part of the article, however, is where we spend a lot of time educating our prospects, and that is with respect to the key benefits of cloud services. The reason cloud services are gaining such interest is that they offer customers an ability to consume services and technologies that would both cost significantly more and require expensive in house expertise if they were to try to replicate that capability on premise.

Throughout the article, IDC consistently uses the terms “simple, cost-efficient, and speed (of adoption, deployment and upgrade).” This reflects our own customers motivations and experiences in using our cloud-based log management and threat management solutions.

If you are considering cloud-based services and want a good description of both its characteristics and benefits this IDC post is a good place to start.