CIO — Don't look now, but the recently moribund server market rebounded sharply this year. According to Ben Worthen's recent blog on WSJ.com, server shipments jumped 15% during Q3. This increase continues the year's higher shipment rates, and reverses the previous declines of 2009. Of course, some of this growth reflects the economic improvement vis a vis the investment clampdown resulting from the global recession of 2008-2009.

However, the blog also contains some facts that point to a rapid growth of public cloud computing. "Skinless," or servers shipped sans case, increased (by revenue) 22.5% and 25.6% for HP and Dell (DELL), respectively. Skinless servers are primarily purchased by cloud service providers (CSP) rather than corporate customers, and are often custom or semi-custom manufactured to CSP specs. In particular, components unnecessary for serving as cloud processing devices are left off of CSP design specs — think USP ports, sound chips, etc. Every avoided component reduces the total server price and, crucially, trims operational cost by reducing power use.

Looking at the growth in the skinless server market makes one thing clear: a lot of cloud computing capacity is coming on stream — and that holds some intriguing implications for cloud users:

Prepare to be bombarded by CSPs encouraging you to use their service. Many of the new providers have to establish a name and a track record, and they'll be looking for reference customers. Look for incentive deals designed to get you to sign up.

Understand that many newly-launched cloud providers are learning about what it means to be a CSP. Implementing cloud computing technology is not the same as having streamlined operational practices characteristic of efficient CSPs. Many newly-minted cloud providers are coming from the colocation or managed service world, and need to learn how to operate in an automated fashion at scale. If you're a customer for a just-launched CSP, expect challenges and glitches. Drive a hard bargain in return for being an early customer, because you deserve to be compensated for providing a learning opportunity for your CSP partner.

Begin your internal skill-building for employees. Architecting applications for cloud environments requires new design patterns, which most application groups do not yet understand. Likewise, operating scalable, elastic applications requires new system administration and management skills. The burgeoning field of "devops," which I discussed earlier this year, reflects the changes in IT operations imposed by cloud computing. Expect that your staff and colleagues will experience a learning curve as the organization grows new skills.

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