By Kelly Teal

These days even the federal government has its head in the Internet cloud. The White House announced on Sept. 15 it’s implemented a cloud computing policy aimed at reducing agencies’ capital costs and environmental impact. So now the term “cloud computing” has gone mainstream, which indicates the technology itself is taking root among industries and entities outside of communications. But there still are issues to work through, from security, billing and third-party development, to answering the pressing question of whether cloud computing is just a hip new term for hosted and managed services.

To those points, an entire education track this week at the VON Conference & Expo is devoted to cloud computing and hosted services. Experts will examine the forces driving cloud-based telephony and also explore the future trends beginning to form around cloud computing. How are providers and software makers gearing up to handle the anticipated crush of demand? For many, preparation over the past 18 months has consisted of opening new data centers, creating new platforms and buying businesses to bolster that hosted focus.

On the data center front, PAETEC, the New York-based CLEC, recently opened a new data center in Bethlehem, Penn., to give “highly secure access” to businesses throughout the country, E.J. Butler, COO of PAETEC, told VON earlier this month.

“Now we’re exploring the development of data centers nationally to meet the upcoming demand for such services,” he added. Plus, Butler said, PAETEC has expanded beyond the traditional hosted services to include data back-up and recovery, “keeping your vital data secure in the cloud and accessible whenever needed.”

In terms of software, IBM has rolled out hardware and software to help its government and corporate customers move toward cloud computing. Its services include streamlining technology that corporate software testers and developers use. Another revolves around virtual desktops, where PC software is run on remote servers and “piped” to desktop computers.

There’s also plenty of activity on the M&A front. Front and center: CA’s September purchase of NetQoS. As Roger Pilc, a senior vice president and general manager for CA explained, “this acquisition very much supports our cloud initiatives.”

CA employs a three-pronged cloud, and executives say NetQoS was the one company positioned to help it flesh out those initiatives. The first element is helping enterprises build internal clouds. The second is helping operators offer cloud services. And the third is to provide a subset of applications in the Software-as-a-Service model.

CA is not the only company looking to smaller, complementary firms to help grow its cloud computing capabilities. Sun Microsystems earlier this year bought Q-layer to simplify cloud management and roll out applications more quickly.

Impressive as those developments may be, they mark just the beginning of cloud computing’s momentum. And they’ll lead to new challenges to tackle, including billing and security. When it comes to billing, flat-rate pricing can drive down revenue. Per-bit plans can confuse customers. And how does a company translate hourly rates to the business world? There are some tools that address these topics, and experts from ifbyphone, CustomCall Data Systems, Xeround, and Dash Carriers Services will cover them on Wednesday morning during a panel session entitled “Chasing Pennies: Billing in the Cloud.”

As for security, moving mission-critical communications services and applications into the Internet cloud brings with it inevitable security threats beyond the capabilities of most enterprise IT departments. And, naturally, a new class of vendors has emerged to deal with these risks specifically. Learn more from executives from Thinking Phone Networks, Evolve IP, Alteva, IBM, and Alcatel-Lucent at the star-studded “Stormy Weather: Securing Cloud Communications” panel on Wednesday.

While some remain convinced that the cloud computing trend is so much vapor – after all, there’s little new about hosted and managed services – there’s enough momentum toward Internet-based provisioning of software and services that it seems fair to consider the cloud the next era in a long-term evolution.