"The speed of businesses is accelerating, requiring continuous tuning and optimization of business processes and operations," noted Bruce Fingles, CIO and VP of Product Quality at Xsigo Systems, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. "IT organizations must have an infrastructure that enables them to partner with business leaders and respond quickly to changes that can help drive the business forward," Fingles concluded.

Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? - "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

Bruce Fingles: Yes. The speed of businesses is accelerating, requiring continuous tuning and optimization of business processes and operations. IT organizations must have an infrastructure that enables them to partner with business leaders and respond quickly to changes that can help drive the business forward.

The Xsigo booth at 10th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York

Cloud Computing Journal: Which of the recent big acquisitions within the Cloud and/or Big Data space have most grabbed your attention as a sign of things to come?

Fingles: Greenplum's acquisition by EMC is a good example of how we're seeing a more holistic view of data management - in this case, bringing together data storage and data analytics.

Cloud Computing Journal: In its recent "Sizing the Cloud" report Forrester Research said it expects the global cloud computing market to reach $241BN in 2020 compared to $40.7BN in 2010 - is that kind of rapid growth trajectory being reflected in your own company or in your view is the Forrester number a tad over-optimistic?

Fingles: We certainly agree that public, private, and hybrid clouds are being more widely adopted, but $241B may be a bit aggressive. I think it depends on how you define cloud computing; it's a generic enough term that you could put just about any purchase in the datacenter these days into the cloud computing bucket.

Cloud Computing Journal: Which do you think is the most important cloud computing standard still to tackle?

Fingles: Fabric Computing - specifically the Data Center Fabric. Many vendors are using this term, but their vision and strategy seems to be based more on extending the life of traditional legacy technologies. We believe adoption of the Data Center Fabric will be driven by continued innovations in virtualization.

Cloud Computing Journal: Big Data has existed since the early days of computing; why, then, do you think there is such an industry buzz around it right now?

Fingles: Because of the sheer amount of data being collected and that it has overwhelmed traditional analytic tools and the networks. Any given mobile device now has dozens of sensors reporting information every few seconds, each person has two to three devices, and 100 million users results in a massive amount of data being delivered just from mobile devices.

Cloud Computing Journal: Do you think Big Data will only ever be used for analytical purposes, or do you envisage that it will actually enable new products?

Fingles: Information spawns innovation. I believe there will be a whole new set of software products based on Big Data.