The holidays can be a perfect time to catch up on tasks you’ve been putting off for a while. For many of us, that includes backing up our data. Of course, this can be a very daunting process in today’s age of nonstop data creation and nearly unlimited storage options.

The cloud market exploded in 2013, and there are no signs of this momentum slowing down. IDC predicts that the cloud will drive $100 billion worth of spending in 2014, up 25% over 2013. The growth comes from more and more companies buying into the idea that storing large amounts of data in the cloud will save time and money, and also mitigate the increasing difficulty of managing large volumes of data in physical servers.

We often find ourselves lost in translation when it comes to the current trendy computing world full of innovations and breakthrough technologies. We use new words and terminology that make computing life even more difficult than it truly is.

‘Tis the season, and IT professionals everywhere are starting to think about the year in review and look ahead to 2014. As work environments continue to become increasingly social and distributed, the role of IT gets more complex -- and more important -- every year. Now more than ever, it’s critical for businesses of all sizes to protect their increasing amounts of data. In fact, 2.5 billion gigabytes of new data are created every day; 90 percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years alone. Forrester predicts that Big Data will be a major driver of IT spending in 2014, growing faster than any other technology category. In light of that, here’s what IT folks have on their holiday wishlists this year: