The new year is approaching so it’s “create your list” time so it seems. In my blog post Big Data “as a Service”, featured on The Atlantic, I stated that “Insight + Hindsight = Foresight”, so I’ll take a different approach to making my own list here.

My “cloud in 2013” list consists of eight IBM white papers on cloud that are not to be missed. These white papers providing hindsight and insight into current and future cloud developments from different angles. As for the foresight; no-one can predict the future, I leave this up to you all individually. All I know is that there is no change without bumps, so educate yourself, buckle up and enjoy the ride!

• The Power of Cloud – Driving business model innovation
  The IBM Institute for Business Value, in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, surveyed 572 business and technology executives across the world. An analysis of survey results revealed some game-changing business enablers powered by cloud. [My favorite]

• Stepping into the Cloud
  Faced with an ever growing and fragmented provider market and conflicting reports of risks and benefits, many companies struggle to take a good idea to a practical reality. This white paper offers a practical guide to creating and implementing a successful cloud strategy  to move your company into the cloud, at whatever pace you prefer.

• Choice and Control – IBM shares Considerations for developing Enterprise Cloud Strategies
  Enterprise-wide cloud implementation can be a challenging process, requiring a thoughtful, strategic approach. This IBM Thought Leadership White Paper covers how to charter your organization’s unique cloud strategy and then — if outside help is warranted — choosing the right cloud partner.

• Success in the Cloud – IBM’s own Cloud Transformation
  Learn from IBM’s own cloud transformation. There is little question about cloud computing’s potential to drive efficiency and lower costs, but the workloads a company selects for migration to the cloud and their affinity for the attributes inherent in the cloud model have a lot to do with cloud’s success as a transformative tool for the business.

• The Future of the IT Department
  Read this IBM Thought Leadership White Paper to discover how cloud computing willchange the role of the IT department. As The Economist put it in 2008, “The rise of the cloud will transform the information technology (IT) industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate.”

• How does IBM deliver Cloud Security
  Security of cloud services remains a top concerns for many organizations including: security of highly virtualized environments, protection of the data (isolation, sharing), and privacy parameters. In order to build this trust, IBM has written this paper to enable discussion around the new security challenges cloud introduces and how these are addressed by IBM’s cloud offerings.

And as 2013 is deemed the year of platform as a service (PaaS) by many, here are two recent white papers on the value and possibilities with PaaS for enterprises.

• Getting More Out of the Cloud with Platform as a Service
  This Frost & Sullivan white paper looks at how platform as a service (PaaS) can streamline and enhance the development and delivery of corporate applications by examining how the right platform can help a corporation build a solid foundation for corporate growth.

• Taming the SAP Maintenance Burden to Deliver Bottom Line Value
  SAP is, for most organizations, the engine that keeps critical financial, operations, and marketing functions running. In this brief Frost & Sullivan debunk the myths surrounding migration of SAP workloads to the cloud and discuss how enterprises can safely leverage the cloud for SAP.

By Edwin Schouten, find out more on edwinschouten.nl or follow me via @schoutene.