Forrester analyst James Staten made 10 predictions for cloud computing in 2011 which build on the gains made over the past year. He said the stage is set for cloud computing to develop into a “vibrant, steady market” rather than a field where just a handful of players like Amazon.com, have made inroads. “Not all moves that show promise today will result in a sustainable harvest come 12 months, but a few trends are likely to play out,” he stated.

We have been hearing a lot about cloud computing these days and this technology has gained a lot of momentum now. But cloud security still remains a concern for everyone. Which is a better option: private or public cloud? Let’s take a look. Public Cloud : A public cloud is nothing but outsourcing your data centre. An external company offers up its data centre for rent and one can choose the number of servers or the amount of storage that needs to be run there, as well as applications. It can then be accessed remotely from a PC.

Red Hat has launched a new customizable training program, which will equip IT professionals with actual cloud-building and management skills. The Red Hat Certified Virtualization Administrator (RHCVA) certification is a hands-on course spread over four days, where participants will be taught to install and configure the Red Hat Virtualization Manager, and use it to, among other tasks, create data centers, manage hypervisor hosts, create storage and import installation media for creating new virtual machines.

Microsoft Corporation feels India will play a major role in cloud computing and foresee India as a global hub in cloud services that has taken the technology world by storm. “India will not only see a surge in cloud computing services but companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to cloud computing,’’ Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.

Cloud computing is one of the most talked about topics in the industry today. In general terms, cloud computing is delivering hosted services over the internet. Shared resources, software, and information are provided on demand just like an electricity grid. The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.

Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, MySpace, Alibaba, Baidu, eTrade and Infosys are some of the companies included in the list. Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Jim Clark and Andy Grove are some of the internet entrepreneurs who have found mentioned in the list.