For Security innovations working with, or aimed at, larger organizations (certainly with over 1,000 employees). Awarded for a genuinely innovative approach to cloud security. This may be in the form of a commercial product, or in-house architecture.

For Security innovations working with, or aimed at, smaller organizations. Awarded for a genuinely innovative approach to cloud security. This may be in the form of a commercial product, or in-house architecture.

A successful track record of success is important for this award; candidates must show evidence not only of expertise in developing a best-fit cloud strategy, but of success.

The category aims to celebrate a personality within your organization, who can be (but is not limited to) Systems Engineer, Architect, Entrepreneur, Business Leader, CIO or CEO. As ever, the main focus is on how this person has innovated. This innovation must be demonstrated to have achieved real-world results within an organization or for end-users.

Disaster recovery and business continuity solutions are perfectly suited to the cloud. Category entrants must demonstrate what specific innovation differentiates their approach to DR and business continuity, and ideally support this with relevant case study materials or testimonials.

Entrants should demonstrate sustainable innovation for current and future development tasks. Demonstrate a focus on the resulting ease of reliable development on the development platform, tool or service. Entrants may choose to nominate a development platform backed up with sufficient testimonials from development teams using the service; alternatively, more discrete development tools may be nominated which may be in limited use within an organization, but which take an elegant or innovative approach to a specific development problem.

In any category, innovation and success are best demonstrated with suitable case study material. In this category, the judges are looking for only one specific case study which showcases innovation in the cloud in an impressive or truly transformational way. Joint submissions are allowed and should be indicated clearly on your submission. In-house cloud projects are also accepted. Please be sure to showcase how the cloud has made a significant difference to the organization in question.

The Cloud is becoming increasingly important in this ever-more closely-connected world. Applicants should demonstrate clearly how the use of cloud technologies has powered innovation in this ever-more relevant area of business.

There are many potential ways the Cloud can help provide a better world for future generations; conversely, known problems such as power-hungry data centers have been known to cause potential issues with factoring in environmental credentials. Applicants should focus on how their use of cloud technologies are helping to make a better environment.

The Cloud is the glue that holds the Internet of Things together. This category is open not only to specific SaaS solutions providers, but projects which have utilized the IoT in their organization. Joint submissions are also accepted.

The Cloud’s force for disrupting long-established practices, people and industry players has gone long unabated. Candidates should actively demonstrate how their Cloud service offering or project has dramatically altered the professional landscape of their industry. The judges will expect to see quantifiable evidence of this.

Aviation and Geospatial solutions will be considered for this category, where the Cloud is increasingly important, offering powerful access to rapid calculations based on vast volumes of data. The judges will expect to see not just technical information of the levels of innovation, but use cases and testimonials.

The Cloud Computing industry can be intense and high-pressured, which is why it’s important to recognize and celebrate the investment in people required to fuel staff retention in larger organizations — or sustain momentum for leaner up-and-comers. Applicants will naturally be expected to provide KPIs on staff satisfaction and retention, alongside testimonial evidence.

A special, once-in-a-decade category of the Cloud Awards. Start-ups may come and go, but this award seeks to recognize the organization which the team feels has made a significant contribution to the Cloud over the course of the past decade. Applicants must have been trading during the period of 2011-2021 and charted various key successes during this time, evidence of which the judging team will expect to see.

This category is open to all as part of the standard entry process, but is also free to enter as a single-category entry for all past winners of a Cloud Award.