Cloud Survey: Customers Think Cloud Boosts Security

By Matthew Weinberger, Talkin’ Cloud

Despite any number of outages and data breaches, a new study by Symantec shows as many as 87 percent of organizations think moving to cloud infrastructure will improve their overall security (or at least leave it unchanged). But at the same time, Symantec’s findings indicate security remains a roadblock to general cloud adoption — and many IT departments aren’t ready for a cloud migration, regardless.

The Symantec State of the Cloud 2011 survey “focused on various forms of cloud computing including Public and Private Software-as-a-Service, Hybrid Infrastructure or Platform-as-Service, as well as Public and Private Infrastructure or Platform-as-a-Service” and incorporated 5,300 responses from users in 38 countries and organizations of all sizes, according to the press release.

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Even though many expressed optimism about cloud security, it was also a top concern, with many expressing trepidation over malware and hack attacks.
• Only 15 percent to 18 percent of respondents indicated their IT staffs were “extremely ready” to tackle the cloud challenge, with almost half claiming their techs just aren’t ready at all.
• The upside of that last statistic for TalkinCloud readers: “3 in 4″ organizations are turning to VARs, service providers, systems integrators and other channel pros to tackle the migration.
• 75 percent to 81 percent of organizations are considering the cloud, with 73 percent implementing cloud services right now (security services are most popular as per the study, but since the report was generated by security giant Symantec, I take that part at least with a grain of salt). But only 20 percent have implemented every single one of the focus areas mentioned above.

Reality and expectations aren’t quite dovetailing: 88 percent expected the cloud to boost IT agility, but only 47 percent say that it actually has, with ROI lower than expected, especially in the areas of disaster recovery, OpEx, efficiency and security.

Most of Symantec’s recommendations per the study results are pretty basic: Take the lead in the cloud migration and don’t dawdle; audit solutions and do your homework with quotes and solutions from many vendors so you get the cloud that’s right for you.
But the piece of advice that stuck with me was this:

You don’t have to take an all-or-nothing approach to cloud computing. Leveraging cloud services are an easy first step to moving to the cloud. While it may take time to prepare to move business-critical applications, you can start immediately with simpler applications and services.

I can’t agree more — one of the nice things about the so-called cloud revolution is that, despite the hype of tastemakers such as Google or Salesforce.com, SaaS and legacy applications can indeed live together in harmony. Choose the solution that works for you right now, and don’t feel pressured to jump in with both feet just because it’s what everyone else is doing.