How Do Security Issues Influence Planning for Cloud Initiatives?
Protecting data, platform, and infrastructure. The most
common drivers of security plans for cloud initiative issues are
related to protecting customer, vendor, and employee data (80
percent); protecting servers and other platform/infrastructure
resources from attack (76 percent); and protecting financial data
(72 percent).
High levels of investment. The level of investment to
protect these vital enterprise assets is significant. When averaged
across our sample group, nearly half (48 percent) of the overall
organizational investment in cloud initiatives is security related.
A clear preference for deployment model. The leading
deployment model today is a private cloud, utilized (or most likely to
be utilized) by a little more than half (52 percent) of organizations
surveyed. A hybrid cloud is preferred by 31 percent and a public
cloud by 11 percent.
Security drives outsourcing decisions. Security was cited
as the biggest concern by 66 percent of those surveyed about
outsourcing some IT to a cloud service provider.
Key Finding:
Protecting platform and
infrastructure resources is a top
concern for more than three-
quarters of IT professionals.
Other Key Findings from the Survey Include the Following:
Implementing security is no easy task. Most report having
experienced moderate (60 percent) or major (22 percent) challenges.
Security concerns are similar for outsourcing. Similar
to general concerns about security in the cloud, data loss and
compromised platform or infrastructure assets are the biggest
concerns for two-thirds (66 percent) of IT professionals when it
comes to outsourcing to a cloud provider. Not surprisingly, the
security capabilities and assurances offered are extremely
important to 60 percent of IT professionals when making
a selection.
Trust in cloud service providers is mixed. Slightly more than
half (54 percent) of IT professionals have some trust in the ability of
their cloud service provider to secure assets in the cloud, while 43
percent have a great deal of trust.
Hardware-based security provides greater
assurance. A cloud service provider with additional hardware-
based security measures is viewed as delivering a higher level
of security by 78 percent.
Minor differences by company size. In general, our data
reveals no significant differences in results among the diverse range
of company sizes in our survey: 100 to 499 employees, 500 to 999
employees, and 1,000-plus employees. However, of those companies
with 1,000 or more employees, 24 percent are already offering cloud
services, compared to 10 percent for each of the other segments.
Key Finding:
Nearly half of the overall
organizational investment in cloud
initiatives is security related when
averaged across our sample group.