Over the last six to nine months, cloud computing has dominated the IT headlines whether in the form of vendors announcing cloud-based services and partnerships to analysts and other surveys all proclaiming cloud as the next major IT trend.  I have experienced numerous IT trends that have underachieved, so I have approached cloud computing cautiously, especially as it relates to cloud-based security services.  But a recent experience has made me more sanguine about cloud computing.

At a recent industry event, I spoke with an experienced CISO of a 1,500 employee organization.  Our conversation naturally led to cloud computing especially as it relates to identity and access management (IAM). He stated that while his organization could clearly benefit from IAM, his organization had evaluated all the major IAM on-premise offerings but found them too "heavyweight" for their needs.  Simply put, his organization has a more homogeneous environment and did not need many of the capabilities in IAM solutions that are designed for more complex and distributed organizations.  For these reasons, his organization decided to stick with homegrown IAM solutions and manual processes.

Cloud based IAM offerings have changed his organization's perspective.  Much of the complexity is abstracted in the cloud and an on-demand pricing model now makes cloud-based IAM affordable and practical.  Even more important than this is the fact that this CISO stated that the senior executives are all talking about cloud computing and want to explore it for many aspects of the business from ERP to CRM, collaboration, storage and security.   And as he succinctly put it, "When the business starts asking for it, chances are it that it will happen."

This quote crystallized for me what makes cloud computing a more sustainable trend than previous ones -- namely that it provides some real economic benefits (either in terms of cost or efficiency) and also opens new markets (namely smaller to medium sized businesses for whom on-premise software was too costly or complex).

Time will tell if IAM as a cloud computing service reaches its full potential.  If other organizations feel the same as this one, the future is bright.