Those involved in either business or IT would have had to be living under a rock to avoid cloud computing, the wildfire trend that's grown from a buzzword into something even consumers are starting to utilise.

While many companies are still likely concerned about the IT security risks, others have pushed ahead, and that's why growth is now beyond what many would have ever anticipated. According to new figures from research organisation Telsyte, even Australia is a centre for cloud growth.

In fact, Australian cloud spending is poised to reach $800 million by 2019, as organisations continue to move workloads to third party providers and other off-premises locations.

"The adoption of cloud computing services is being driven by both traditional IT pressures and emerging technology," the Telsyte report noted.

"Cost reduction, time-to-market, scalability are ongoing traditional IT pressures CIOs face and this is being compounded by emerging workloads like big data analytics, Internet of Things and personal apps in the workplace."

Last year, IBM observed that 86 per cent of businesses used the cloud, at least in some capacity, and the market for cloud services will grow significantly over the next five years.

There's really no limit to what can actually be shifted across the cloud. Companies can use cloud-based video conferencing tools to ease collaboration, online file storage to eliminate and IT security and document management issues, and run customer service applications from a secure, always-online system.

Key to the success of any IT endeavour, however, is a strong backbone of highly trained staff. This means using a framework like ITIL, where best practice in IT is the top priority. After undertaking this training, businesses will have an assurance that cloud based systems are being kept secure, and staff are getting the most out of them.

Speak to ALC Training today to find out more about ITIL and our range of other powerful frameworks.