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IDC released a report this week that predicts huge growth in the public and private cloud markets. According to the report, which was authored by analysts Katherine Broderick, Michelle Bailey and Matthew Eastwood; private cloud server revenue could grow from $8.2 billion in 2009 to a whopping $11.8 billion by 2014. IDC says this explosion is driven by a number of factors including a recovering economy combined with an aging server population and increasing virtualization within the enterprise infrastructure.

A significant factor in this growth is the explosion in the cloud server market. The report states that 122,615 servers were deployed in private clouds in 2009, but IDC predicted the number of servers will grow to 502,626 in 2014. Any way you slice it, this is a huge and growing market, driven in large part by companies facing increasingly complex infrastructure management, which they can begin to better control using a private cloud setup.

The report also states that public cloud services will play a role, and although the numbers aren't quite as impressive as the private server market, IDC is predicting significant growth for the same period with public cloud revenue expected to rise from $582 million in 2009 to $718 million in 2014.

It's clear cloud computing is coming. Although there are still many fears and misconceptions around public and private clouds, companies are beginning to see the benefits to this approach. Whether you want to build your own data center or farm it out to a vendor will be one of the choices you have to make in the coming years, but if these numbers are anywhere close to accurate, chances are you will be doing a good amount of your computing in the cloud.

Most large organizations face the kind of issues cited by this report. Cloud computing, whether public or private, can help you control costs and your computing infrastructure, which is reason enough to begin thinking about it.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.