Cloud computing is on everyone’s minds these days – and it isn’t as light a subject as the title would suggest.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources … that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

That mouthful makes cloud computing sound like a boon to IT departments everywhere – and it certainly can be. However, cloud computing often creates just as many problems as it solves, forcing companies to develop complex work-arounds or face PR disasters when clouds go down. Here are the top five cloud computing conundrums.

1. Security Concerns Around Cloud Computing

Security of data and access control is always the number one concern of IT professionals considering moving to the cloud. Public clouds involve external ownership and internal IT departments are in the dark about who owns their confidential information or where the hosting servers are located. In Steve Hendrick’s IDC Directions presentation on Cloud Platform Wars this month, he said his 2011 IDC Cloud Survey found “Security; keeping content outside our firewall,” was the most important challenge facing cloud adoption.

2. Changing IT Roles

In short, CTOs and CIOs are now businessmen, and CFOs and CEOs are increasingly getting their hands in IT. In an effort to become leaner, more efficient, retain a competitive edge, companies are leverage their resources differently and with more collaboration. The business side of companies are seeing more and more opportunities in Cloud Computing to cut costs – be they servers, software licenses or headcount. On the IT side, cloud computing enables IT decision makers to focus on productivity and efficiency of applications instead of the infrastructure required to support those applications.

Denny Lane dispells 3 myths about high availability servers, comparing our legacy 1982 products to our newest ftserver. The fault tolerant solutions are smaller, less expensive, and more up-to-date than ever, and run Linux, VMware, Windows, and even support both private and public cloud.

An interview with Laura DiDio of ITIC on the cost of downtime.

IDC Analyst Matt Eastwood gives his key take-aways from the Dec. 1 #CloudTalk panel on Cloud Computing.

#CloudTalk Panelist Dave McFarlane on his key takeaways from a Cloud Computing panel event surrounding emerging technologies and growth in the industry.