Though I've only worked in the information technology (IT) space for four years, I've witnessed some drastic changes in tech adoption and the way customers are talking about the latest trends.

For example, four years ago "the cloud" was an enigmatic phrase but now customers seem to be much more understanding of not only its benefits but the computing model in general. Most organizations I meet with have adopted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) within their environment in some shape or form - email, HR, CRM, or accounting programs, to name a few. And now, these same organizations are rapidly moving to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)!

As an Account Executive at eGroup, I meet with customers daily and am starting to see some consistent pain points and challenges they're all collectively facing. Three immediate examples come to mind:
<h2>Managing Hardware</h2>
Organizations are getting tired of managing their hardware and software infrastructure. The monthly patches, updates, and troubleshooting can become tedious at best and costly at worst. I have noticed this specifically in the SMB arena, where they might not need and/or have the funds to bring a full time employee in house to handle these items on a regular basis. So they're choosing to offload their infrastructure to a Hosted Cloud Provider to free the organization up from worrying about keeping the IT lights on and re-direct the focus more on their business and strategic goals. What's interesting is seeing some of the newer, start-ups I work with that "were born in the cloud" and have offloaded their entire infrastructure from the get go!
<h2>Deploying Applications</h2>
Another concern I always hear, is that clients are having difficulties with deploying new servers and applications in a timely fashion. More importantly, trying to keep up with the demand of the end users seems to be a never ending battle for my customers. The ability to respond to business users and developers who require system and application resources, without a whole lot of planning and capital expenditure, is critical for the success of the business.
<h2>Business Continuity</h2>
Also top-of-mind with customers is the ability to quickly reboot and recover data quickly in the event of a disaster. Unfortunately, most organizations are ill-prepared. Why? Because paying for "insurance" is never easy. However, migrating infrastructures to the cloud can eliminate the concerns all together in a cost effective way. Customer experience many benefits by migrating IT infrastructures to a Hosted Cloud Provider, it just all depends on the specific use case and business goals they are hoping to accomplish.

So, these are three key pain points I'm hearing from the frontlines - what about you?

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