The concept of cloud services or Cloud Computing is revolutionizing the way organizations deploy their IT infrastructure. This change provides opportunities for all those involved, both in the Internet and systems sectors, which in one way or another support the deployment of information technology. The different uses and services offered under the umbrella of this new paradigm affect, on the one hand, organizations and individuals who realize how cloud services offers them advantages in terms of greater efficiency and flexibility and reduced investment effort, and, on the other, technology companies and traditional operators who see an opportunity to expand their business.

This revolution is in its early stages, and its ultimate impact on stakeholders in terms of value creation is not yet known. The key feature of this change is the transfer of investment and effort in terms of the design, construction, implementation and maintenance of IT infrastructure systems and the services supporting them, towards the cloud value chain player known as the Cloud services provider.
 

The transfer of systems and sharing of resources are the key issues that are driving change in that respect, enabling services to be provided in a flexible, scalable and cost-effective way. However, none of this will be possible without the proper scaling of the elements in the telecommunications network (e.g. access to and interconnection and development of terminals) to ensure the capacity increase that widespread use of the cloud will require.

Traditional operators should be able to leverage the competitive advantage that having their own infrastructure, to which new business lines can be added to provide cloud services, brings them, and this mitigates the difficulties arising from the relationship between the service provider and the network infrastructure. In this regard, it is important to find a way to monetize the opportunities offered by this new service provision paradigm. The end goal should therefore be to increase revenue in a market environment characterized by high penetration levels and by the maturity of traditional connectivity services.

This document discusses some of the implications derived from the use of the cloud as well as its advantages and the opportunities along with a series of guidelines that will allow the different stakeholders make the most out of the new situation.

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