The decision to purchase a cloud environment is exciting and new. Previous blog posts this month have provided guidelines for how to use the cloud environment, choosing the correct cloud and how to secure your resources. You’ve chosen a vendor and are ready to implement, but there are always those lingering questions. What if the deployment doesn’t go smoothly? What if your applications aren’t executed correctly? This article gives you five easy ways to begin preparing for your cloud environment before you implement.

The following is a guest post by Reese Jones.

The Cloud is an incredible step forward in data management and the age-old routine of backing up and syncing your files with your colleagues. Being able to commit code to a centralised place or uploading a new set of GUI elements, knowing that in minutes they'll sit on your programmer's computer ready to be implemented makes for a far more slick development process. But if you're a development team who hasn't yet dipped into the potential of cloud computing, then you're missing out.

According to data Gartner has gathered, Software-as-a-Service based applications (or cloud-based applications) are expected to see a growth of 17.4% globally by 2016 with the three fastest growing segments being Office Suites, Digital Content Creation and Business Intelligence.