BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Cloud Security Fears Diminish With Experience, Survey Shows

Following
This article is more than 9 years old.

Security is always the leading fear among companies just starting to dip their toes into the cloud computing realm. However, as time passes and they gain experience, their security worries vanish.

That's one of the takeaways from a recent survey of 1,068 companies conducted by RightScale, Inc. The survey's authors report that while the benefits of the cloud increase with experience, the challenges of cloud show a sharp decrease as organizations gain expertise with cloud. Close to one-third of executives and professionals who have not yet implemented cloud say security is their top concern, a number that diminishes to 13 percent of seasoned, heavy users of cloud services (and is only the fifth-ranked concern on their list).

One-fourth of respondents did not have clouds in place, while another 22 percent were seasoned cloud veterans, the survey finds. The reduced concern about security reflects a comfort level that increases as the time spent with cloud engagements increases. That doesn't mean slacking off on security, of course -- ultimately, security is the responsibility of the end-user company.

So what types of issues rise to the top as organizations gain more cloud experience? Among seasoned cloud enterprises in the survey, compliance, cost and performance - are most often cited as challenges. Managing multiple cloud services also becomes more of an issue.

Thus, as cloud takes hold, the need for enterprise governance of cloudscapes grows as well. While just over half report their organizations (57 percent) have defined the business value they want to get from cloud initiatives or security policies for cloud, only about a third have defined policies for choosing public or private clouds, or implementing availability or disaster recovery.

In addition, the survey finds cloud benefits are growing more apparent, when compared to results from last year's RightScale survey. The number of respondents reporting benefits from cloud computing grew in 2014 over the previous year in a variety of categories, including higher availability (48 percent, up from 41 percent in 2013), geographic reach (37 percent, up from 32 percent in 2013), cost savings (34 percent, up from 30 percent in 2013), and business continuity (34 percent, up from 28 percent in 2013).

The survey also looked at leading enterprise choices for public cloud services. Amazon Web Services leads in adoption with 54 percent, followed by VMware vCHS and Microsoft Azure. VMware vSphere leads in the private cloud space with 42 percent, followed by OpenStack with 35 percent of enterprises.  Among small to medium businesses, Amazon led, followed by RackSpace and Google App Engine.

Hybrid cloud is the approach of choice for IT executives and professionals, the survey also finds. At least 74 percent of enterprise respondents have a multi-cloud strategy, and 48 percent are planning for hybrid clouds. In addition, 15 percent of enterprises expect to use multiple public clouds, and 11 percent are planning for multiple private clouds.