In 2011, roughly one-third of overall IT budgets were allocated for cloud servers, up from slightly more than one-quarter in 2010,VMware's Global Cloud Adoption survey said, according to a Tech Week Europe report. Roughly half of all cloud spending is used for private environments, as companies feel their mission-critical applications and data are more protected on-site.

"Sixty-seven percent said the cloud is critical or very important and there was a very similar figure for virtualization," VMware executive Joe Baguley said, according to Tech Week Europe. "Business drives the requirements but IT drives the response."

Traditionally, IT was a way to gain a competitive advantage over rival firms. Eventually, IT became a standard set of tools for every company, regardless of its size, and became a necessity to cut costs and improve efficiency, Tech Week Europe reported.

According to a study by Spiceworks, small and medium-sized businesses continue to increase their IT budgets, with the average organization spending more than $150,000 per year on information technology. Cloud hosting services are among the most commonly invested solutions throughout the private sector, including the SMB market.