Cloud Adoption is Up, But Security Still a Concern

By Peter Scott, TMCnet Contributor  |  November 23, 2015

Cloud adoption among businesses is on the rise, according to the recently released IDG 2015 Cloud Computing Survey, but security is still a sticking point for the enterprise.

Fully 72 percent of organizations now have at least one application in the cloud, according to the survey, but 56 percent are still identifying operations that can be moved to the cloud.

The private cloud continues to be the favorite of business, with 61 percent of cloud users embracing the private cloud model; that’s up from 57 percent in 2014. The survey found that 58 percent of organizations using the cloud were using the public cloud, with 26 percent employing a hybrid approach.

A quarter of all IT spend will be allocated to cloud computing in 2016, according to the IDG survey, with the average business in the survey investing $1.56 million on the cloud. Lower total cost of ownership is the leading reason for the spending, with business continuity, deployment speed and legacy technology replacement being other leading reasons for investing in the cloud.

Among the most used cloud applications, storage-as-a-service continues to be the most widely deployed 43 percent currently use storage-as-a-service, with an additional 29 percent planning to use it in the coming year. A quarter of those surveyed also are using the cloud for disaster recovery, with an additional 34 percent planning to use it within the year.

API use is widespread, IDG has found. Almost 90 percent of enterprise organizations are using APIs as part of their cloud integration plans. Enterprise organizations are more likely to integrate with databases, messaging systems, portals or storage components, with 58 percent of enterprises utilizing it versus only 52 percent for SMBs. Enterprises also are more likely to connect the application-layer with the cloud and underlying infrastructure and network configurations.

Despite increasing cloud adoption, however, security still is a top issue for businesses when it comes to the cloud.

Roughly 67 percent of organizations surveyed by IDG said they have concerns about security in the cloud, up from 61 percent last year. This is even more of a concern for financial services organizations, where 78 percent cited security as a top concern.

So cloud adoption continues apace, but adoption is nowhere near complete quite yet.




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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