CALIFORNIA, USA: Service providers around the world have embraced the cloud concept in earnest and are heavily investing in new services and service delivery platforms based on their particular areas of expertise, finds market research firm Infonetics Research.

In a survey, the research firm also finds that seventy per cent of respondent operators are investing in cloud services in anticipation of demand.

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The top operator strategies for offering cloud services are bundling cloud services with network connectivity services and offering cloud services over Ethernet or IP VPN services.

"Internet content providers are leading with SaaS, data centre and co-location operators are adding IaaS to their product portfolios and investing in additional infrastructure facilities, and traditional telcos are building on their existing networks and adding a range of services," notes Sam Barnett, directing analyst, data centre and cloud, Infonetics Research.

Many of the smaller data centre providers participating in Infonetics' survey plan to keep their business uncomplicated by moving from simple collocation support offerings to IaaS via the addition of computer and storage hardware, rather than getting into the complexities of offering OS software platforms.

Ninety five per cent of respondent operators offer IaaS now.

More sophisticated offerings such as platform-as-a-service, or PaaS (formed by the addition of server operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and Unix) and software as a service, or SaaS (such as e-mail and security services offered by telcos and ICPs like Google) are currently offered by fewer operators, however, will grow significantly by 2013, adds Infonetics.