In today’s economy one thing has remained certain, if not, has grown stronger over the last few years: We want to make the most out of what we have now. Unless your Oprah or Bill Gates (News - Alert), the last thing you’d ever want is to waste valuable assets when you could have used them more (you know, that last bit of toothe paste in the tube). This resourcefulness can easily translate to making the most of cloud computing.

I agree with this recent TalkCloud Computing article when it says that “contrary to what many people believe, cloud computing is not a short-lived trend.” Additionally, the article states that “most businesses that switch to cloud services do so without adequately understanding their data requirements, the resources available or to what extent a cloud provider is able to fulfill business requirements.”

 In light of this, here are a few simple steps to get the most out of cloud computing now:

·         Evaluate your data requirement: By assessing your data requirement first, you’ll avoid paying for more than you need later. One of the greatest benefits of cloud computing is that it goes by a pay-per-use basis; the last thing you want is to spend more than you need during time when you need to strategically dedicate your resources. For example, the article says, if you’re a small-scale company, it’s highly likely that you’ll be needing enterprise-class cloud computing services. Taking the time to do this will prove very advantageous in the long run.

·         Create a proper budget: This one is pretty self-explanatory. In order to avoid paying for more than you need, you must accordingly allocate a proper budget for your cloud computing needs. “To do that, you need to turn to your IT staff and a cloud-computing advisor for expert advice,” the site insists.

·         Understand your data storage: Once you jump into the cloud, make sure that you’re monitoring where your data resides on the cloud. “In case of more than one cloud service, always ensure that you know what kind of data is stored in each of those services,” notes the site.

·         Choose a cloud-hosting provider: Trusting in a reliable and reputable cloud-hosting provider is key. Consider Datapipe (News - Alert), a managed hosting, security and IT services company covering cloud computing, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Srvice (PaaS), collocation and data centers. The company’s renowned Stratosphere Elastic Cloud solution, for example, is a globally available, high-performance managed cloud computing platform designed to meet enterprise requirements for governance, usability and compliance, and is also interoperable with traditional compute platforms.

If you follow these steps, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with the cloud during both the initial stages of deployment as well as with future maintenance and security.

In other news, Datapipe is currently in the running to snag the honor of having the “Best Hybrid Cloud Solution." Each nominee is currently up for voting until November 23, where the final round of voting will take place on December 12 during UP 2012 Cloud Computing Conference. With almost 40 companies in the running, Datapipe is already in sixth place, and with just about two weeks left to vote, could easily walk away as first. Click here to vote for Datapipe now.

To learn more about all of Datapipe’s offerings, visit www.datapipe.com.