Most Cloud Computing Is Under The Radar In Enterprises, Survey Shows

Cloud is a popular option for many enterprises, and most are diving into cloud at some level. However, on-premises systems still dominate, and are still the preferred choice for most applications, a recent survey shows.

Unless people are simply going ahead and using cloud without getting permission.

This is one of the takeaways from a recent survey of 2,041 executives across the globe, released by Microsoft and conducted by 451 Research. The survey finds more than 45 percent of organizations consider themselves to be beyond the pilot phase, with 32 percent with a formal cloud computing plan as part of their overall IT and business strategy. At least 24 percent consider their enterprises to be "heavy" cloud users at this time. The survey examined various forms of enterprise computing, from adoption of public Software as a Service to private cloud to hosted applications.

Some interesting data really jumped out of the study. For example, at this point, only six percent of respondents would consider cloud to be the "default platform" for new applications. There are many vendors -- particularly startups -- who are offering nothing but cloud-based solutions, so this suggests there is still a ongoing vibrant market for on-premises systems. At the same time, only 18 percent rely "heavily" on cloud for new projects. The picture is decidedly mixed -- enterprises aren't afraid of cloud, but they're only likely to subscribe or apply cloud-based solutions in selective situations.  Ultimately, however, executives anticipate that at least 39 percent of their application portfolio will be touching the cloud within the next two years.

Perhaps heavy cloud adoption is still in the minority because business and IT leaders simply don't know who is adopting cloud in their organizations. In fact, a lot of cloud adoption is going on under the enterprise radar, the survey shows. Forty-four percent of executives admit that there are a lot of off-budget purchases or implementations of cloud taking place within their enterprises. One in five indicate that there is even a "significant" amount of shadow IT spending on cloud resources taking place under their noses.

While not explored in the survey, it's likely many business users are signing on to services such as Dropbox, Box and Salesforce.com for much of their own work. If they use mobile at work, they may be taking advantage of mobile cloud services such as Apple iCloud. Windows users, of course, have access to Office 365-based services such as OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) for quick, accessible storage outside the IT department's storage capability. Google's array of cloud services, such as Google Docs and Google Drive, also are readily available. Or, they may even be tapping into the innumerable APIs that cover every business process from purchase orders to lunchroom services. Developers and IT people themselves also may be using a range of outside services to build and test their applications, such as Amazon Web Services and RackSpace -- not to mention the cloud-based development environments now available.

Which may explain why, when asked for their leading best practices when it comes to cloud-based implementations, executives put a heft emphasis on security. Here are the top-ranked best practices mentioned in the survey:

1. Have a well-defined architecture for security
2. Understand who the end-users are
3. Train users to be cautious with access and security
4. Have a well-defined architecture for performance
5. Have a phased approach starting with pilot testing