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CIOs need to take an axe to the hype surrounding Cloud Computing if they're going to take full advantage of its potential.

That's the conclusion reached by research firm Gartner in its "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" report, which says that the vast tide of hype around The Cloud means decision makers need to filter through a lot of non-Cloud stuff to reach the good bits.

"The levels of hype around Cloud Computing in the IT industry are deafening, with every vendor expounding its Cloud strategy and variations, such as private Cloud Computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype," the report said. "Vendor organisations must clarify their Cloud strategies in the next 12 months, while user organisations must demand road maps for the cloud from their vendors today," said David Mitchell Smith, Gartner vice president and fellow.

The report goes on to argue that service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology has passed the hype peak and is now on the "slope of enlightenment," well on its way to mainstream adoption.

"Survey data from 2008 indicate that nearly 80% of organisations were using SOA or expected to use it by mid-2009," the report said. "Some organisations have been disappointed by the low level of service sharing that they have achieved. Some SOA projects have encountered problems in governance, testing, configuration management, version control, metadata management, service-level monitoring, security and interoperability."

Web 2.0 is also close to mainstream adoption by enterprise IT, with corporate blogging in particular set to achieve widespread enterprise adoption in less than two years. But because Web 2.0 technology enables direct interaction between customers and the enterprise, it is being adopted faster than businesses themselves are changing which may cause later problems.

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