It’s apparent that migrating business to the cloud reached a tipping point in 2011 where it is no longer a trend, but has become an absolute business requirement. This growth stems from the fact that a) it’s available and b) it’s effective.

In the most transformative technology shift since the personal computer and the Internet, it’s clear that companies, both  large and small, now fully realize the advantages of shifting their IT and business needs to the cloud. No longer does it take a team of IT professionals and large budgets to deploy, upgrade and manage a company’s technology. Developers, business managers and IT pros turn to the cloud because it simply solves their problems.

However, while 2011 may be the year companies got serious about the cloud, 2012 will prove to be the year of cloud management. Since cloud is our business, we at RightScale are always tracking the latest developments and where the technology is headed. As we gear up for another busy year, we’ve identified a few of the top trends that we feel are set to make an impact on businesses in 2012:

1. Step 2 Is Visibility. In 2011, companies realized that virtualization is only the halfway point and that a true cloud is automated, scalable and most importantly, API-driven. In 2012, enterprises must gain visibility into the entire lifecycle of cloud-based applications, from development to deployment to operations – and across multiple cloud providers and resource pools. That’s the true promise of cloud computing, and the only way to realize it is through MultiCloud management.

2. MultiCloud Makes its Move: This year, true private clouds emerged as key complements to public clouds, and companies now have unprecedented choice among cloud infrastructure alternatives, including public, private and hybrid clouds. Operating a MultiCloud strategy has advanced from an idea to a reality. Looking ahead, enterprises need to have better control of this cloud usage, without limiting the ease-of-use of cloud consumption – and that means offering self-service for users.

3. Standardization without standards. Today, the world of cloud workloads resembles the Wild West, where anything goes in terms of limitless builds and deployment options. In 2012, development and operations teams within companies need a shared management framework that both enables portability across APIs and provides dynamic configuration of standardized workloads in order to ensure that their cloud solutions will be easy to manage and maintain throughout their lifecycle.

By Josh Fraser, senior vice president of business development at RightScale, a leader in cloud computing management.