The cloud platform was announced in June with two customers, and now has four, O'Sullivan said. He believes the cloud platform offers significant cost savings for users now running their own high-performance trading systems.

In this cloud model, the user brings an application that can either run on Windows or Red Hat. The entire operation uses VMware tools, O'Sullivan said.

Michael Versace, global risk director at IDC Financial Insights, doesn't see any major downside risks to the cloud approach being used by the NYSE. "I would trust that the NYSE gets it right; they have a better chance of getting right than anyone else," Versace said.

He believes the demand for this type of service will be there, particularly from hedge funds which may see a service that they can buy as a tremendous option.

Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .