While IT budgets may stay flat in many companies, there’s one tech area that’s going to get a boost in spending: 

Cloud computing.

Most organizations plan to spend more on cloud services in the next year, according to a recent IDG Enterprise survey.

Currently, 60% of businesses use at least one application in the Cloud, and 71% plan to increase their spending on cloud computing services over the next 12 months, according to the survey of 554 IT professionals.

The Cloud’s popularity has been on the rise for a while now, in part because using cloud services can often save businesses a significant amount of money.

However, while cost savings were a significant motivator, respondents to this survey gave a different top reason for moving more applications to the Cloud: business continuity.

Cloud services allow companies to create backups and server redundancies at a lower cost and with more ease than they would often be able to otherwise. That was the top business driver for increasing cloud investments, according to 84% of IT pros surveyed.

Of course, cloud vendors must be carefully chosen for those investments to pay off.