Cloud computing offers a bright future for enterprise IT in the form of a scalable infrastructure and pay-as-you-need pricing model. As cloud adoption emerges both in hype and value, all technologists are interested to know how the story will unfold. One way to examine the future of cloud computing is to look at the recent past of another formerly over-hyped technology enabling agility and cost-savings to organizations-service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Though they are two very different things, the difficulties of early cloud computing will parallel many of the frustrations early SOA adopters experienced. The more businesses depend upon a variety of cloud-based software as services, the more interdependency and risk they expose themselves to. Companies attempting to leverage new software models such as SaaS, third-party services, data-oriented services and cloud computing need to heed the pitfalls encountered by early SOA attempts, to get to the practical value. Read more of this article by Jason English, vice president of iTKO, here.