Cloud computing has been the subject of intense debate in the past three years, with arguments vying for the technology and hailing it as the next phase in enterprise IT management while challengers state it is only a new name for existing computing models. More recently however, a number of catalysts such as the increasing smartphone adoption and the current economic climate have pushed cloud computing to the forefront of business and consumer interest.
In a new report, Visiongain expects the global market for cloud computing will grow from $30.6 billion in 2011 to $82.9 billion by 2016. The business segment is increasingly adopting different aspects of cloud services in order to capitalize on the numerous advantages offered in software, platform and infrastructure. Cost-savings, scalability, adaptability to market demands, faster time-to-market and flexible payment methods are enticing large enterprises as well as small and medium sized businesses into the cloud.
The cloud offerings available on the market today are as diverse as they are numerous. The spate of vendors and providers offer different types of models and services which can easily overwhelm those looking to capitalise on the benefits offered by the cloud. Choosing the right provider and service is critical to ensure the cloud offering is appropriate customer's needs. An unsuitable cloud solution can be a major disadvantage, wasting valuable resources, money and time.
The Visiongain report is designed to help businesses understand the cloud landscape. It advises on the advantages and benefits of the different deployment models and service offerings. The spate of vendors and providers can become overwhelming due to the nascent and fragmented nature of the current cloud market which is only now maturing. The report breaks down the market into understandable segments, allowing for a more comprehensive view of the current offers and the different vendors.
Contact: For more information on the report, "Cloud 2011: Moving into the Realm of an Essential IT Strategy," click here.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Majority Of Enterprises To Move To Hybrid Cloud By 2015
Sixty-six percent of enterprises plan to move to a hybrid cloud environment within the next four years, according to a study. A large majority plan to combine public cloud and private data centres to deliver business applications, rather than opting for a cloud only (17 percent) or private data centre only approach (17 percent).
Results also highlight trends in cloud networking, delivery, adoption and barriers to adoption:
Networking in the cloud
To support the hybrid cloud model over 63 percent of businesses surveyed plan to use a mixture of traditional MPLS-based corporate networks and cost-effective IP-VPNs. With almost 70 percent of companies citing cost reduction as the primary driver for selecting a cloud project, moving to a hybrid networking strategy emerges as a popular route to control IT budgets.
Cloud delivery
Despite the increased complexity associated with adopting a hybrid networking model, surprisingly over 50 percent of companies plan to deploy and manage their on-going cloud program themselves, using their own IT department. Just 31 percent plan to outsource this process to external service providers to manage with the remainder not planning to adopt the cloud.
Cloud adoption and barriers to adoption
By the end of 2012 50 percent of companies are set to have a private cloud (completely virtualised central datacentre) in place. Almost a third have already implemented a private cloud with a further 20 percent expecting to have done so within the next two years. Security was seen as the primary barrier to cloud adoption with 58 percent of respondents believing security concerns prevented greater implementation. Performance of the cloud model was also viewed as a challenge with 39 percent of respondents viewing performance issues as a barrier to further adoption.
Comment from Beatrice Piquer, Marketing Director for Ipanema Technologies: From this research it's clear that a combination of cloud and private data centres is becoming the primary model for enterprise IT. The cloud can bring great benefits but a hybrid model will add complexity as applications are delivered from a variety of locations across different networks. IT leaders taking on this challenge need to view the WAN as a strategic asset and guarantee performance at the application level.
About the study: The research study of 150 enterprise CIOs and IT Directors was a collaboration between Ipanema Technologies and Orange Business Services to understand the objectives and challenges companies face as they move to the cloud.
Contact: http://www.ipanematech.com
Results also highlight trends in cloud networking, delivery, adoption and barriers to adoption:
Networking in the cloud
To support the hybrid cloud model over 63 percent of businesses surveyed plan to use a mixture of traditional MPLS-based corporate networks and cost-effective IP-VPNs. With almost 70 percent of companies citing cost reduction as the primary driver for selecting a cloud project, moving to a hybrid networking strategy emerges as a popular route to control IT budgets.
Cloud delivery
Despite the increased complexity associated with adopting a hybrid networking model, surprisingly over 50 percent of companies plan to deploy and manage their on-going cloud program themselves, using their own IT department. Just 31 percent plan to outsource this process to external service providers to manage with the remainder not planning to adopt the cloud.
Cloud adoption and barriers to adoption
By the end of 2012 50 percent of companies are set to have a private cloud (completely virtualised central datacentre) in place. Almost a third have already implemented a private cloud with a further 20 percent expecting to have done so within the next two years. Security was seen as the primary barrier to cloud adoption with 58 percent of respondents believing security concerns prevented greater implementation. Performance of the cloud model was also viewed as a challenge with 39 percent of respondents viewing performance issues as a barrier to further adoption.
Comment from Beatrice Piquer, Marketing Director for Ipanema Technologies: From this research it's clear that a combination of cloud and private data centres is becoming the primary model for enterprise IT. The cloud can bring great benefits but a hybrid model will add complexity as applications are delivered from a variety of locations across different networks. IT leaders taking on this challenge need to view the WAN as a strategic asset and guarantee performance at the application level.
About the study: The research study of 150 enterprise CIOs and IT Directors was a collaboration between Ipanema Technologies and Orange Business Services to understand the objectives and challenges companies face as they move to the cloud.
Contact: http://www.ipanematech.com
Government Adoption of Cloud Computing Increases, Despite Security Concerns
Security remains the single biggest concern of government information technology decision-makers when it comes to cloud computing, a survey has found. However, despite these security concerns, 50% are now considering cloud applications for their agencies, versus only 12% a year ago.
Two-thirds of participants cited security as the most important element in their evaluations. At the same time, those more familiar with cloud computing are more than twice as likely to trust it, 57 percent versus 24 percent. Concerns about security are not the only obstacle holding back federal agencies from moving to the cloud. At least three-quarters of participants identified dependability, availability, and the ability to continue using existing applications as elements that cloud-based solutions must address. Meanwhile, more than one-quarter of participants identified mission-critical data management, procurement, and financial management systems as applications they would never consider moving to the cloud.
Comment from Lockheed Martin's Curt Aubley, Vice President for Cyber Security and NexGen innovation: The government is making strides in transitioning to the cloud and we believe an intelligence driven cyber security approach, and asking the penetrating questions regarding cloud governance, availability, and reliability are key to prudent adoption. Security concerns are the single biggest reason agencies cite for their slow adoption of cloud. There's a lot of hype in the industry.
Comment from Cynthia Poole, research director at Market Connections: One major takeaway is that nearly one-third of participants agreed that cloud-based computing is a good solution for all data and applications, which indicates that if security concerns can be addressed successfully, the cloud would be embraced wholeheartedly by a number of agencies.
About the survey: The study funded by the Lockheed Martin Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Market Connections included in-depth interviews and an online survey. It explored comfort levels, cloud engagement, elements of importance and plans for cloud application migration among U.S. federal government, defense/military, and intelligence agency technology decision-makers and IT contractors serving the federal government. Study findings reflect input from 196 participants from all military branches and a variety of federal civilian agencies.
Contact: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
Two-thirds of participants cited security as the most important element in their evaluations. At the same time, those more familiar with cloud computing are more than twice as likely to trust it, 57 percent versus 24 percent. Concerns about security are not the only obstacle holding back federal agencies from moving to the cloud. At least three-quarters of participants identified dependability, availability, and the ability to continue using existing applications as elements that cloud-based solutions must address. Meanwhile, more than one-quarter of participants identified mission-critical data management, procurement, and financial management systems as applications they would never consider moving to the cloud.
Comment from Lockheed Martin's Curt Aubley, Vice President for Cyber Security and NexGen innovation: The government is making strides in transitioning to the cloud and we believe an intelligence driven cyber security approach, and asking the penetrating questions regarding cloud governance, availability, and reliability are key to prudent adoption. Security concerns are the single biggest reason agencies cite for their slow adoption of cloud. There's a lot of hype in the industry.
Comment from Cynthia Poole, research director at Market Connections: One major takeaway is that nearly one-third of participants agreed that cloud-based computing is a good solution for all data and applications, which indicates that if security concerns can be addressed successfully, the cloud would be embraced wholeheartedly by a number of agencies.
About the survey: The study funded by the Lockheed Martin Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Market Connections included in-depth interviews and an online survey. It explored comfort levels, cloud engagement, elements of importance and plans for cloud application migration among U.S. federal government, defense/military, and intelligence agency technology decision-makers and IT contractors serving the federal government. Study findings reflect input from 196 participants from all military branches and a variety of federal civilian agencies.
Contact: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
Majority Of IT Security Professionals Are Likely To Use FISMA Or PCI Compliant Cloud Vendor
A survey of IT security professionals has found that 69 percent would be more likely to consider cloud vendors that are PCI or FISMA compliant, compared with 63 percent in 2010.
Other findings:
-- Only 32 percent of companies believe the cost savings associated with cloud computing outweigh security considerations for their organization, up from 26 percent in 2010
-- 69 percent of companies are considering cloud computing, up from 66 percent in 2010
Comment from Tim Keanini, CTO for nCircle: These results are a clear indication that there is demand for specific and tangible assurance of security and compliance measures from cloud vendors. IT security professionals are informed buyers. They know that cloud vendors currently produce very little evidence of their internal security and compliance processes and do not allow their customers to conduct their own security and compliance audits.
About the survey: The nCircle survey (2011 Information Cloud Computing Study) polled 551 IT security senior management, IT operations, security professionals and risk and audit managers.The survey was conducted between March 17 and March 25, 2011, and covered a range of security topics.
Contact: Download a copy of the study here.
Contact: http://www.ncircle.com
Other findings:
-- Only 32 percent of companies believe the cost savings associated with cloud computing outweigh security considerations for their organization, up from 26 percent in 2010
-- 69 percent of companies are considering cloud computing, up from 66 percent in 2010
Comment from Tim Keanini, CTO for nCircle: These results are a clear indication that there is demand for specific and tangible assurance of security and compliance measures from cloud vendors. IT security professionals are informed buyers. They know that cloud vendors currently produce very little evidence of their internal security and compliance processes and do not allow their customers to conduct their own security and compliance audits.
About the survey: The nCircle survey (2011 Information Cloud Computing Study) polled 551 IT security senior management, IT operations, security professionals and risk and audit managers.The survey was conducted between March 17 and March 25, 2011, and covered a range of security topics.
Contact: Download a copy of the study here.
Contact: http://www.ncircle.com
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
New Era Of Consumer-Driven IT Arrives
The consumerization of IT across enterprise scale IT organizations has reached a tipping point where mainstream IT organizations are recognizing that they can no longer ignore the transformational impact of consumer technologies in the enterprise, a study has found.
While the consumerization of IT creates many new opportunities, including increased employee productivity, improved customer interactions, and faster and more agile business operations and decision making, it also results in significant IT management and security challenges.
Widespread consumer adoption of the cloud is here, with cloud-based applications and social networking becoming the norm. The adoption of these services is ushering in a new era of consumer driven IT, where CIOs are facing tremendous pressure to satisfy the pervasive and real-time demand for data and services from business users within their organizations. The cloud is enabling enterprises to be more agile, offering organizations the opportunity to innovate in their product or services offerings. The days of the CI "No" are over, as the new generation of workers and customers are demanding an "always-on, always connected" experience. While new opportunities are clearly emerging, so are the risks. The need for reliable IT management and security solutions across all environments, specifically virtual and cloud, are become increasingly important to ensure that this next generation of IT is successful.
Consumer use of smartphones, social networks and cloud services are fundamentally changing the way that enterprises do business.
The study found that different IT decision makers are using different tactics to address these rapid fire changes in their customer and employee expectations. One group of thought leaders, representing 19 percent of the total sample of IT decision makers surveyed, was found to be particularly proactive in getting ahead of the curve of consumer driven IT. This group generally emphasizes the need for the IT organization to work closely with business unit decision makers to aggressively integrate consumer technologies into a wide range of customer facing programs and internal business initiatives.
This group of "leaders" can be contrasted with more "mainstream" organizations that described themselves as market followers or ones that preferred to let business decision makers lead the charge without assistance from the IT team, in that they tend to be father along in exploiting the potential advantages of IT consumerization.
The research indicates these proactive leaders are more likely to realize greater benefits from the investments they are making to proactively addressing the consumerization of IT.
For example:
-- 45 percent report they are experiencing improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by using social networks and rich media, compared to 31 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent say they are seeing increased market share due to their use of social networks and rich media, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent note they are seeing greater penetration into new geographies, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
Similarly, these proactive leaders are experiencing significant benefits from the use of public cloud services. Specifically, among the 616 organizations in the survey that are using public cloud services:
-- 45 percent are reporting they are able to reduce IT staff, FTEs and/or training expenses using public cloud services, versus 35 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 36 percent are seeing improved competitive positioning from their use of public cloud services, compared to 28 percent of the mainstream sample.
-- 36 percent see an improved ability to deal with spikes in demand using public cloud services, compared to 26 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 33 percent experience better end-to-end application performance from using public cloud services, compared to 24 percent of mainstream organizations.
While these trends were consistent around the world, the survey did show some international variability. For example, among U.S. based IT decision makers currently using public cloud services, 42 percent said they were seeing reductions in IT staff expenses, FTEs, and/or training costs, compared to 37 percent of the total sample (including the U.S. respondents).
Comment from Crawford Del Prete, IDC's Chief Research Officer: Today's CIOs have an opportunity to lead both business and IT innovation as they help their organizations decide how to best exploit the trend towards consumerization and personalization of IT. CIOs are being called upon to do more than just maintain IT operations behind the firewall. In the face of rapid and intense consumerization of IT, CIOs are being called upon to work closely with business decision makers to create safe, secure, well-managed environments that allow the company to communicate and collaborate with customers and employees anytime, anywhere. CIOs need to lead the charge in order to ensure that customers are engaged, confidential data is protected, employee productivity is enabled, and the enterprise is getting the greatest return possible on every IT dollar it spends. The experience of these proactive leaders shows that IT and business collaboration is critical in order for CIOs to cost effectively and proactively manage, control and secure their IT environments at a time when mobility, personalization, cloud and social media are rapidly shifting business requirements.
About the study: The IDC study ("IT Consumers Transform the Enterprise: Are You Ready?") was sponsored by CA Technologies and is based on two global surveys plus a focus group of IT executives, all of which were conducted in March-and April, 2011. IDC surveyed 804 IT executives from organizations of over $1 billion in revenue with responsibility for or influence over their organization's strategy for public cloud, social, and mobile initiatives. A separate survey consisted of 1,040 IT consumers who use public cloud, smart mobile devices, and/or social networks for personal or business purposes. To qualify, respondents had to be fully employed, over 17 years of age, and use a PC or other mobile device for personal and/or work purposes.
Contact: http://www.CA.com
While the consumerization of IT creates many new opportunities, including increased employee productivity, improved customer interactions, and faster and more agile business operations and decision making, it also results in significant IT management and security challenges.
Widespread consumer adoption of the cloud is here, with cloud-based applications and social networking becoming the norm. The adoption of these services is ushering in a new era of consumer driven IT, where CIOs are facing tremendous pressure to satisfy the pervasive and real-time demand for data and services from business users within their organizations. The cloud is enabling enterprises to be more agile, offering organizations the opportunity to innovate in their product or services offerings. The days of the CI "No" are over, as the new generation of workers and customers are demanding an "always-on, always connected" experience. While new opportunities are clearly emerging, so are the risks. The need for reliable IT management and security solutions across all environments, specifically virtual and cloud, are become increasingly important to ensure that this next generation of IT is successful.
Consumer use of smartphones, social networks and cloud services are fundamentally changing the way that enterprises do business.
The study found that different IT decision makers are using different tactics to address these rapid fire changes in their customer and employee expectations. One group of thought leaders, representing 19 percent of the total sample of IT decision makers surveyed, was found to be particularly proactive in getting ahead of the curve of consumer driven IT. This group generally emphasizes the need for the IT organization to work closely with business unit decision makers to aggressively integrate consumer technologies into a wide range of customer facing programs and internal business initiatives.
This group of "leaders" can be contrasted with more "mainstream" organizations that described themselves as market followers or ones that preferred to let business decision makers lead the charge without assistance from the IT team, in that they tend to be father along in exploiting the potential advantages of IT consumerization.
The research indicates these proactive leaders are more likely to realize greater benefits from the investments they are making to proactively addressing the consumerization of IT.
For example:
-- 45 percent report they are experiencing improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by using social networks and rich media, compared to 31 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent say they are seeing increased market share due to their use of social networks and rich media, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent note they are seeing greater penetration into new geographies, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
Similarly, these proactive leaders are experiencing significant benefits from the use of public cloud services. Specifically, among the 616 organizations in the survey that are using public cloud services:
-- 45 percent are reporting they are able to reduce IT staff, FTEs and/or training expenses using public cloud services, versus 35 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 36 percent are seeing improved competitive positioning from their use of public cloud services, compared to 28 percent of the mainstream sample.
-- 36 percent see an improved ability to deal with spikes in demand using public cloud services, compared to 26 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 33 percent experience better end-to-end application performance from using public cloud services, compared to 24 percent of mainstream organizations.
While these trends were consistent around the world, the survey did show some international variability. For example, among U.S. based IT decision makers currently using public cloud services, 42 percent said they were seeing reductions in IT staff expenses, FTEs, and/or training costs, compared to 37 percent of the total sample (including the U.S. respondents).
Comment from Crawford Del Prete, IDC's Chief Research Officer: Today's CIOs have an opportunity to lead both business and IT innovation as they help their organizations decide how to best exploit the trend towards consumerization and personalization of IT. CIOs are being called upon to do more than just maintain IT operations behind the firewall. In the face of rapid and intense consumerization of IT, CIOs are being called upon to work closely with business decision makers to create safe, secure, well-managed environments that allow the company to communicate and collaborate with customers and employees anytime, anywhere. CIOs need to lead the charge in order to ensure that customers are engaged, confidential data is protected, employee productivity is enabled, and the enterprise is getting the greatest return possible on every IT dollar it spends. The experience of these proactive leaders shows that IT and business collaboration is critical in order for CIOs to cost effectively and proactively manage, control and secure their IT environments at a time when mobility, personalization, cloud and social media are rapidly shifting business requirements.
About the study: The IDC study ("IT Consumers Transform the Enterprise: Are You Ready?") was sponsored by CA Technologies and is based on two global surveys plus a focus group of IT executives, all of which were conducted in March-and April, 2011. IDC surveyed 804 IT executives from organizations of over $1 billion in revenue with responsibility for or influence over their organization's strategy for public cloud, social, and mobile initiatives. A separate survey consisted of 1,040 IT consumers who use public cloud, smart mobile devices, and/or social networks for personal or business purposes. To qualify, respondents had to be fully employed, over 17 years of age, and use a PC or other mobile device for personal and/or work purposes.
Contact: http://www.CA.com
Massive Data Growth Drives Backup And Recovery Concerns
There is a growing concern in enterprise data centers about their ability to adequately protect massive data volumes and increasingly complex environments, according to a survey of large enterprises. Unabated data growth continues to be the most significant data protection challenge. Large enterprises are increasingly focusing on protecting data in branch locations and in implementing more effective disaster recovery solutions.
Other findings:
-- Enterprises continue to face the challenges of protecting enormous data volumes and handling rapid data growth. Data growth continues unabated with more than one third of respondents reported that their data was growing by more than thirty percent annually. The number of respondents that reported having greater than thirty percent annual growth increased from twenty-eight percent of respondents in 2010 to thirty-three percent of respondents in 2011.
-- Data centers now face a growing challenge of "sprawl" as they add more and more systems to handle data growth. Seventy percent have had to add a disk-based data protection system to scale their backup performance or capacity in the last twenty-four months. Additional systems are adding hours of administrative burden to IT staff.
-- IT administration and staff time is at a premium. Seventy-four percent of enterprise respondents felt their organization fell short on data protection. The majority (thirty-five percent) cited that "team is understaffed" as the primary reason.
-- Disaster protection and enterprise branch office data protection are significant and increasingly growing concerns. "Data will be unrecoverable in the event of a disaster" was rated as the greatest backup/data protection fear. This fear was also evident in responses to "How well does your current disaster recovery (DR) testing prepare you for a real disaster?" as fifty-seven percent scored moderately or poorly. "File Replication" and "Reporting on Application Recovery/Replication Integrity" also scored as high spending priorities.
-- Enterprises are still using physical tape libraries despite initiatives to move to disk. Fifty-two percent of respondents are using physical tape to protect data in their enterprise branch offices.
-- Disaster recovery reporting is rated most frequently as the critical IT spending priority for 2011/2012.
-- Migrating to new technologies is both a wish and a fear. It rated third among stated fears that it would lead to disruption. However, it was also mentioned frequently in free form answers as a desire.
-- Public cloud services are being used for selected application requirements more than private cloud.
Comment from Joe Forgione, senior vice president, product operations and business development, Sepaton, Inc.: The tremendous volume of data that is already being protected by enterprises is growing rapidly. The number of respondents that reported having greater than thirty percent annual data growth increased from twenty-eight percent in 2010 to thirty-three percent in 2011. As a result, large enterprises experiencing massive data growth are eager to adopt data protection platforms that are specifically designed to address their requirements to simply and cost effectively scale performance and capacity independently in a single unified platform.
About the survey: Sepaton conducted the annual survey of large enterprises with at least 1,000 employees and at least 50 terabytes of primary data to protect. The survey was conducted in Q2 2011 and elicited responses from 581 IT professional across North America and Europe of which 168 met criteria for large enterprise. The objective of the survey was to quantify current data protection and disaster protection challenges for enterprise data centers.
Contact: http://www.sepaton.com
Other findings:
-- Enterprises continue to face the challenges of protecting enormous data volumes and handling rapid data growth. Data growth continues unabated with more than one third of respondents reported that their data was growing by more than thirty percent annually. The number of respondents that reported having greater than thirty percent annual growth increased from twenty-eight percent of respondents in 2010 to thirty-three percent of respondents in 2011.
-- Data centers now face a growing challenge of "sprawl" as they add more and more systems to handle data growth. Seventy percent have had to add a disk-based data protection system to scale their backup performance or capacity in the last twenty-four months. Additional systems are adding hours of administrative burden to IT staff.
-- IT administration and staff time is at a premium. Seventy-four percent of enterprise respondents felt their organization fell short on data protection. The majority (thirty-five percent) cited that "team is understaffed" as the primary reason.
-- Disaster protection and enterprise branch office data protection are significant and increasingly growing concerns. "Data will be unrecoverable in the event of a disaster" was rated as the greatest backup/data protection fear. This fear was also evident in responses to "How well does your current disaster recovery (DR) testing prepare you for a real disaster?" as fifty-seven percent scored moderately or poorly. "File Replication" and "Reporting on Application Recovery/Replication Integrity" also scored as high spending priorities.
-- Enterprises are still using physical tape libraries despite initiatives to move to disk. Fifty-two percent of respondents are using physical tape to protect data in their enterprise branch offices.
-- Disaster recovery reporting is rated most frequently as the critical IT spending priority for 2011/2012.
-- Migrating to new technologies is both a wish and a fear. It rated third among stated fears that it would lead to disruption. However, it was also mentioned frequently in free form answers as a desire.
-- Public cloud services are being used for selected application requirements more than private cloud.
Comment from Joe Forgione, senior vice president, product operations and business development, Sepaton, Inc.: The tremendous volume of data that is already being protected by enterprises is growing rapidly. The number of respondents that reported having greater than thirty percent annual data growth increased from twenty-eight percent in 2010 to thirty-three percent in 2011. As a result, large enterprises experiencing massive data growth are eager to adopt data protection platforms that are specifically designed to address their requirements to simply and cost effectively scale performance and capacity independently in a single unified platform.
About the survey: Sepaton conducted the annual survey of large enterprises with at least 1,000 employees and at least 50 terabytes of primary data to protect. The survey was conducted in Q2 2011 and elicited responses from 581 IT professional across North America and Europe of which 168 met criteria for large enterprise. The objective of the survey was to quantify current data protection and disaster protection challenges for enterprise data centers.
Contact: http://www.sepaton.com
Cloud Storage Gains Traction Among SMBs
The proliferation of hackers, natural disasters and unstable market conditions are all significant drivers for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. to seek backup/storage for their company's data and email in the cloud, according to new research.
Pressure to reduce costs, improve flexibility, and maintain privacy of sensitive data also lures SMBs to invest in cloud storage.
Furthermore, for mobile SMB employees, cloud storage is an attractive tool for backing-up and storing data while on the go. 31 percent of the one million U.S. SMBs using hosted storage have mobile employees. The market for hosted storage will increase by 11 percent yearly (CAGR) through 2015, to $270 million.
Comment from Nichelle Grannum, Survey Research Analyst at AMI: Many U.S. SMBs are moving to the cloud to enhance existing packaged applications, such as CRM databases. Cloud storage provides these companies with the latest storage technology realizing a significant reduction in IT overhead due to decreased investment in physical storage devices on their premises. Hosted storage also allows companies to subscribe based on their storage capacity requirements and desired backup schedule, coupled with the benefit of a flexible payment schedule. Since companies need only to pay for the storage they actually use, hosting costs can be tightly controlled. Responsibility for storage maintenance tasks, such as backup, data replication, and storage software updates are entrusted to the service provider, allowing SMBs to focus on their core business.
For cloud storage U.S. SMBs prefer private servers as opposed to public or hybrid ones.
Company data is constantly changing and growing in volume, thus moving storage to the cloud gives companies greater storage capacity and flexibility at a lower cost. With the influx of smartphones and tablets, cloud storage will become increasingly more critical in providing an easily accessible, yet secure place to backup and retrieve company data.
About the study: AMI's 2011 U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook -- Strategic and Tactical GTM Planning Guide provides a tactical framework for architecting cloud-based services offerings to meet the growing demand for cloud services "bundles" and a perspective on cloud-related dynamics shaping up in the SMB space.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
Pressure to reduce costs, improve flexibility, and maintain privacy of sensitive data also lures SMBs to invest in cloud storage.
Furthermore, for mobile SMB employees, cloud storage is an attractive tool for backing-up and storing data while on the go. 31 percent of the one million U.S. SMBs using hosted storage have mobile employees. The market for hosted storage will increase by 11 percent yearly (CAGR) through 2015, to $270 million.
Comment from Nichelle Grannum, Survey Research Analyst at AMI: Many U.S. SMBs are moving to the cloud to enhance existing packaged applications, such as CRM databases. Cloud storage provides these companies with the latest storage technology realizing a significant reduction in IT overhead due to decreased investment in physical storage devices on their premises. Hosted storage also allows companies to subscribe based on their storage capacity requirements and desired backup schedule, coupled with the benefit of a flexible payment schedule. Since companies need only to pay for the storage they actually use, hosting costs can be tightly controlled. Responsibility for storage maintenance tasks, such as backup, data replication, and storage software updates are entrusted to the service provider, allowing SMBs to focus on their core business.
For cloud storage U.S. SMBs prefer private servers as opposed to public or hybrid ones.
Company data is constantly changing and growing in volume, thus moving storage to the cloud gives companies greater storage capacity and flexibility at a lower cost. With the influx of smartphones and tablets, cloud storage will become increasingly more critical in providing an easily accessible, yet secure place to backup and retrieve company data.
About the study: AMI's 2011 U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook -- Strategic and Tactical GTM Planning Guide provides a tactical framework for architecting cloud-based services offerings to meet the growing demand for cloud services "bundles" and a perspective on cloud-related dynamics shaping up in the SMB space.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Increasing Cloud Adoption Fuels Demand For Application Testing, Quality Assurance
As they enter a period of recovery, most organizations (85 percent) recognize that their application portfolios are in need of rationalization and that mission critical applications implemented using outdated technology must be revised and updated to increase efficiency, a survey has found.
As a result, 42 percent of companies plan to increase their budget allocation for application quality assurance (QA) and testing. And as companies seek to adopt agile delivery methods as part of their application quality assurance, the percentage of companies who are moving at least some of their IT systems to the cloud has grown to 81 percent. The emergence of new technologies such as cloud-based services is also fueling the need for stringent testing and QA, as application security becomes vital for ensuring quality and mitigating risk.
Investment in quality assurance is greatest in emerging economies. In the last year, 83 percent of Chinese companies and 56 percent of Brazilian companies substantially increased their QA investment, contrasting with relatively steady budgets in North America and Europe. The focus on quality assurance across Australian organizations has also increased markedly over the past year, with 37 percent of survey respondents indicating that their testing budgets had gone up. Increasingly, investment in QA is focused on promoting efficiency and standardization, often through creating Testing Centers of Excellence to centralize and consolidate QA practices, particularly in emerging market companies.
Emerging economies are also the fastest adopters of cloud infrastructure:
-- Over a third of Chinese companies (37 percent) plan to migrate between 11 and 25 percent of their applications to the cloud in the next year with a further 40 percent making arrangements to host between 26 and 50 percent;
-- In contrast, 24 percent of companies in the North America and 18 percent of Western and Northern European companies indicate they still have no interest in migrating their applications to the cloud.
The adoption of cloud and the growing reliance on Internet-based applications is also raising the importance placed on application security, which in the past has typically been seen by companies as an audit and risk management function. Over a quarter (27 percent) of large organizations (5,000+ employees), are putting in place dedicated information security (IS) teams to design and test security procedures and requirements to ensure new systems and applications have not been compromised and that confidential and sensitive information is protected from access or damage by unauthorised users. Testing in the cloud means a new generation of testers will need to manage the entire portfolio of IT services rather than just verifying the quality of individual systems.
Businesses' continue to rely on outsourcing for application testing. Over two thirds (70 percent) of respondents employ contractors or third party vendors for quality assurance. No longer are they looking to only outsource test execution, but also testing strategy, user acceptance testing and security. Preference for outsourcing continues to be co-location (27 percent) followed by near-shore locations within a company's country or continent (24 percent). However, preference of off-shore locations differs between North American and European organizations. For companies based in the US and Canada the next choice is often India (18 percent), followed by China (12 percent), and Eastern Europe (9 percent) while for the first time, Western and Northern European companies have indicated they prefer to outsource QA to Eastern Europe (12 percent) or China (7 percent) over India (4 percent).
The report also highlights the need for the standardization of QA, through proven methodologies, as increasing importance is placed on measuring business impact, whether linking results to business goals or quantifying losses from potential application defects. There has also been a continued rise in test automation to help address this:
-- 37 percent use internally developed estimation techniques and a further 22 percent of companies use industry standard estimation methods and yet 12 percent have no consistent methodology at all;
-- However, the majority of companies (58 percent) carry out up to half of their QA without using automation. Only 23 percent use automated testing solutions for over half of tests.
Comment from Raf Howery, vice president, Global Channels and Partners Executive, Capgemini: CIOs are under intense pressure to deliver high quality applications on a tight budget. Migrating high quality applications to the cloud is a natural progression as it offers a cost effective, reliable and agile arena to create and test them in. Further investment in QA, especially in developed markets, will help ensure companies can flourish in the cloud once the technology is fully adopted.
Comment from Jonathan Rende, general manager and vice president, Applications, Software, HP: Today trends like cloud and mobile are elevating the complexity of applications. Organizations are challenged more than ever to maintain their competitive edge by delivering higher quality software while remaining agile. The results of the World Quality Report underscore how the discipline of quality management, global sourcing and agile processes must become integral to an organization's software delivery strategy to effectively innovate faster.
About the survey: Capgemini, a provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Sogeti, its local professional services division, together with HP today released the findings of the third annual World Quality Report. The World Quality Report Survey was completed by 1,200 CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, IT directors and managers and QA managers around the world, including North America (39 percent), Western Europe (33 percent), Australia (8 percent), China (8 percent), Brazil (5 percent) and other regions in Europe, Asia and Latin America (7 percent). The survey also included responses from a variety of different company sizes.
Contact: http://www.capgemini.com/testing; http://www.sogeti.com/testing
As a result, 42 percent of companies plan to increase their budget allocation for application quality assurance (QA) and testing. And as companies seek to adopt agile delivery methods as part of their application quality assurance, the percentage of companies who are moving at least some of their IT systems to the cloud has grown to 81 percent. The emergence of new technologies such as cloud-based services is also fueling the need for stringent testing and QA, as application security becomes vital for ensuring quality and mitigating risk.
Investment in quality assurance is greatest in emerging economies. In the last year, 83 percent of Chinese companies and 56 percent of Brazilian companies substantially increased their QA investment, contrasting with relatively steady budgets in North America and Europe. The focus on quality assurance across Australian organizations has also increased markedly over the past year, with 37 percent of survey respondents indicating that their testing budgets had gone up. Increasingly, investment in QA is focused on promoting efficiency and standardization, often through creating Testing Centers of Excellence to centralize and consolidate QA practices, particularly in emerging market companies.
Emerging economies are also the fastest adopters of cloud infrastructure:
-- Over a third of Chinese companies (37 percent) plan to migrate between 11 and 25 percent of their applications to the cloud in the next year with a further 40 percent making arrangements to host between 26 and 50 percent;
-- In contrast, 24 percent of companies in the North America and 18 percent of Western and Northern European companies indicate they still have no interest in migrating their applications to the cloud.
The adoption of cloud and the growing reliance on Internet-based applications is also raising the importance placed on application security, which in the past has typically been seen by companies as an audit and risk management function. Over a quarter (27 percent) of large organizations (5,000+ employees), are putting in place dedicated information security (IS) teams to design and test security procedures and requirements to ensure new systems and applications have not been compromised and that confidential and sensitive information is protected from access or damage by unauthorised users. Testing in the cloud means a new generation of testers will need to manage the entire portfolio of IT services rather than just verifying the quality of individual systems.
Businesses' continue to rely on outsourcing for application testing. Over two thirds (70 percent) of respondents employ contractors or third party vendors for quality assurance. No longer are they looking to only outsource test execution, but also testing strategy, user acceptance testing and security. Preference for outsourcing continues to be co-location (27 percent) followed by near-shore locations within a company's country or continent (24 percent). However, preference of off-shore locations differs between North American and European organizations. For companies based in the US and Canada the next choice is often India (18 percent), followed by China (12 percent), and Eastern Europe (9 percent) while for the first time, Western and Northern European companies have indicated they prefer to outsource QA to Eastern Europe (12 percent) or China (7 percent) over India (4 percent).
The report also highlights the need for the standardization of QA, through proven methodologies, as increasing importance is placed on measuring business impact, whether linking results to business goals or quantifying losses from potential application defects. There has also been a continued rise in test automation to help address this:
-- 37 percent use internally developed estimation techniques and a further 22 percent of companies use industry standard estimation methods and yet 12 percent have no consistent methodology at all;
-- However, the majority of companies (58 percent) carry out up to half of their QA without using automation. Only 23 percent use automated testing solutions for over half of tests.
Comment from Raf Howery, vice president, Global Channels and Partners Executive, Capgemini: CIOs are under intense pressure to deliver high quality applications on a tight budget. Migrating high quality applications to the cloud is a natural progression as it offers a cost effective, reliable and agile arena to create and test them in. Further investment in QA, especially in developed markets, will help ensure companies can flourish in the cloud once the technology is fully adopted.
Comment from Jonathan Rende, general manager and vice president, Applications, Software, HP: Today trends like cloud and mobile are elevating the complexity of applications. Organizations are challenged more than ever to maintain their competitive edge by delivering higher quality software while remaining agile. The results of the World Quality Report underscore how the discipline of quality management, global sourcing and agile processes must become integral to an organization's software delivery strategy to effectively innovate faster.
About the survey: Capgemini, a provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Sogeti, its local professional services division, together with HP today released the findings of the third annual World Quality Report. The World Quality Report Survey was completed by 1,200 CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, IT directors and managers and QA managers around the world, including North America (39 percent), Western Europe (33 percent), Australia (8 percent), China (8 percent), Brazil (5 percent) and other regions in Europe, Asia and Latin America (7 percent). The survey also included responses from a variety of different company sizes.
Contact: http://www.capgemini.com/testing; http://www.sogeti.com/testing
Cloud Will Have Dramatic Impact on IT Organizations, Vendors and Enterprises
Top information technology executives believe that cloud computing will have a significant impact on IT organizations and IT vendors, as well as the enterprises they support, according to a survey.
More than 70 percent of those surveyed said they believed that by 2014, a third of all IT organizations will be providers of cloud services to customers or business partners.
Almost 80 percent of respondents felt that cloud service brokers that provide integration, management, security and other services across public cloud offerings will emerge as powerful industry players by 2015.
The survey findings raised a red flag for the IT industry as a whole, with nearly two-thirds of those surveyed agreeing that several IT vendors will stumble badly in the transition to the cloud over the next three years, putting them at risk of becoming the next Wang or DEC.
Nearly half of respondents feel that major cloud providers will have addressed uptime concerns so effectively in the next three years that reliability will be a non-issue in moving enterprises to the cloud. The findings also showed that most believed security -- a chief impediment to cloud services -- will instead become a major accelerator by 2015.
More than 80 percent of the respondents said that one-third of Fortune 1000 enterprises will deploy at least one business-critical system in the cloud. More than half of the IT executives surveyed believe that mobile-optimized cloud services will be a primary interface with customers by 2014.
Comment from John Gallant, SVP and chief content officer, IDG Enterprise: The cloud has been the subject of much debate and discussion, but this survey offers us new and unique insights, from a group of today's most influential IT executives and early cloud adopters.
About the survey: The "Future Proofing the Cloud" survey from IDG Enterprise included questions that explore how the cloud is changing the IT organization, as well as how the industry and technology itself may evolve.
Contact: http://www.idc.com
Contact: http://www.www.idgenterprise.com
More than 70 percent of those surveyed said they believed that by 2014, a third of all IT organizations will be providers of cloud services to customers or business partners.
Almost 80 percent of respondents felt that cloud service brokers that provide integration, management, security and other services across public cloud offerings will emerge as powerful industry players by 2015.
The survey findings raised a red flag for the IT industry as a whole, with nearly two-thirds of those surveyed agreeing that several IT vendors will stumble badly in the transition to the cloud over the next three years, putting them at risk of becoming the next Wang or DEC.
Nearly half of respondents feel that major cloud providers will have addressed uptime concerns so effectively in the next three years that reliability will be a non-issue in moving enterprises to the cloud. The findings also showed that most believed security -- a chief impediment to cloud services -- will instead become a major accelerator by 2015.
More than 80 percent of the respondents said that one-third of Fortune 1000 enterprises will deploy at least one business-critical system in the cloud. More than half of the IT executives surveyed believe that mobile-optimized cloud services will be a primary interface with customers by 2014.
Comment from John Gallant, SVP and chief content officer, IDG Enterprise: The cloud has been the subject of much debate and discussion, but this survey offers us new and unique insights, from a group of today's most influential IT executives and early cloud adopters.
About the survey: The "Future Proofing the Cloud" survey from IDG Enterprise included questions that explore how the cloud is changing the IT organization, as well as how the industry and technology itself may evolve.
Contact: http://www.idc.com
Contact: http://www.www.idgenterprise.com
Monday, June 20, 2011
Discrepancies Found Between Cloud Project Goals and Reality
Disparities exist between expectations and reality as enterprises deploy cloud computing and virtualization solutions, a survey has found. CEOs and CFOs are concerned with moving business-critical applications into virtual or cloud environments due to challenges including reliability, security, availability and performance.
Adoption of server virtualization is widespread, and more than 75 percent of organizations are discussing private and hybrid cloud deployments. Of the technologies evaluated in the survey, server and storage virtualization are the most mature with 45 and 43 percent of enterprises implementing. Private Storage-as-a-Service is the least mature with 36 percent adopting.
Early investments have revealed gaps between expectations and reality which indicate that organizations are still learning what these technologies are capable of and how to overcome the new challenges they bring with them. Respondents were asked about initial goals in server, storage, and endpoint virtualization; private Storage-as-a-Service; and hybrid/private cloud. Then those who have already implemented were asked which goals they actually achieved. The difference between the two answers revealed an expectation gap.
-- Server virtualization projects were most successful, with only a 4 percent average gap between expected and realized goals. The biggest
gaps occurred in scalability, reducing capital expenditures and reducing operating expenditures.
-- The average shortfall in storage virtualization was 33 percent, with disappointments coming in agility, scalability and reducing operating expenditures.
-- Respondents reported an average gap between expected and realized goals of 26 percent with endpoint/desktop virtualization. They cited
disappointments in new endpoint deployment, application delivery and application compatibility.
-- Seventy-seven percent of organizations are considering private Storage-as-a-Service, but these projects are challenging to implement
and fall short of expectations by 37 percent. For example, complexity reduction was a goal for 84 percent of respondents, but reached by
only 44 percent.
These gaps are a hallmark of early stage markets where expectations are out of step with reality. As the virtualization and cloud markets continue to mature, we expect to see those gaps close.
Increasing Focus on Business-Critical Applications Organizations investing in virtualization and hybrid/private cloud technologies tend to follow a similar path, starting by virtualizing less critical applications such as test and development environments and progressing to more important applications such as email and collaboration; line of business; eCommerce and supply chain; and ERP/CRM.
The survey shows that organizations are leveraging virtualization for business-critical applications. Of enterprises who are implementing virtualization, more than half (59 percent) plan to virtualize database applications in the next 12 months. Fifty-five percent plan to virtualize web applications, and 47 percent plan to virtualize email and calendar applications. Forty-one percent plan to virtualize ERP applications.
We found that organizations are more slowly leveraging hybrid/private cloud technologies for business-critical applications. An average of just 33 percent of business-critical applications such as ERP, accounting and CRM are in hybrid/private cloud environments. Respondents stated concerns over account, service, or traffic hijacking; authentication vulnerabilities; access vulnerabilities; disaster recovery; and encryption.
Quality of Service Challenges Emerge as Top Priorities As virtualization and private cloud technologies become more widely adopted, the cost and performance of storage is becoming increasingly top of mind. More than half of respondents (56 percent) said storage costs somewhat or significantly increased with server virtualization. Of those in the process of virtualizing storage, the top three reasons for deployment include reducing operating expenses (55 percent), improving storage performance (54 percent), and improving disaster recovery readiness (53 percent).
Seventy-six percent of enterprises who have implemented server virtualization indicated that security was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Sixty-three percent listed security as a significant/extreme challenge to implementing server virtualization.
Performance issues are a factor for the majority of organizations. Seventy-six percent of those who have implemented server virtualization stated that performance was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Seventy-two percent of organizations that have implemented hybrid/private clouds cited performance as a significant/extreme challenge.
Among enterprises that have implemented server virtualization, reliability was the number one concern. Seventy-eight percent said it was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing mission-critical applications on virtualized servers. Of those who have implemented storage virtualization, 83 percent stated uptime and availability as an important goal.
According to the survey findings, 46 percent of CFOs who are implementing hybrid/private clouds are less than "somewhat open" to moving business-critical applications into those environments. Forty-four percent of CEOs are cautious about moving these applications.
Main concerns cited about virtualization and hybrid cloud deployments are reliability (78 percent), security (76 percent), and performance (76 percent).
In practice, many C-level concerns are unfounded based on responses from IT. For example, concerns about performance are a top reason cited for caution, yet 78 to 85 percent of those who deployed server virtualization achieved their goals related to performance.
Comment from John Magee, vice president of virtualization and cloud solutions, Symantec: Cloud computing represents a major shift within IT -- changing from a traditional IT delivery to a service-provider model. Moving to the cloud is a complex evolution for many companies and it's essential that IT and executives are aligned on initiatives. Virtualization is an enabler for private and hybrid clouds and our survey shows that planning a seamless move is critical to achieving all the simplicity, affordability and efficiency that these environments have to offer.
Recommendations
Enterprise IT's evolution to the cloud has a fair share of challenges, but also compelling rewards. Despite concerns, most enterprises are implementing virtualization and moving to a cloud computing future. For these enterprises, Symantec offers recommendations to help make the journey as smooth as possible.
-- Ensure alignment between IT and executives in virtualization and cloud initiatives: It is important to show that you can address C-level concerns such as security and availability. Show that their concerns, while important, can be successfully overcome by leveraging existing best practices and robust solutions that ensure valuable information and critical applications are protected and highly available.
-- Don't operate in a silo when it comes to cloud computing: Virtualization and cloud initiatives are most successful when implemented as mainstream, comprehensive IT initiatives. Because they involve all aspects of IT (servers, storage, network, applications, etc.) they can fail when managed as siloed "special projects." Rather, treat cloud as an IT-wide initiative with all departments included in planning and implementation.
-- Leverage and modernize your existing infrastructure: Before you're ready to implement hybrid/private cloud, make sure you are leveraging
the existing infrastructure to achieve the same efficiencies and then modernizing it as needed. Convert static servers, storage and networking into a virtualized pool of resources. Replace static provisioning with self-service provisioning, and make sure to implement monitoring and metering to demonstrate value to the business.
-- Set realistic expectations and track your results: Remember that despite the hype, cloud is a new and still maturing market. Do your
homework to set expectations that are realistic, then follow up and track results to identify ways to improve project efficiency going forward.
About the survey: Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey is the result of research conducted in April 2011 by Applied Research, which surveyed more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries worldwide. IT and C-level professionals responsible for computers, networks and technology resources at small, medium, and large enterprises (defined as 1,000-2,400, 2,500-4,999, and 5,000+ employees). The survey included more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Contact: http://www.symantec.com
Adoption of server virtualization is widespread, and more than 75 percent of organizations are discussing private and hybrid cloud deployments. Of the technologies evaluated in the survey, server and storage virtualization are the most mature with 45 and 43 percent of enterprises implementing. Private Storage-as-a-Service is the least mature with 36 percent adopting.
Early investments have revealed gaps between expectations and reality which indicate that organizations are still learning what these technologies are capable of and how to overcome the new challenges they bring with them. Respondents were asked about initial goals in server, storage, and endpoint virtualization; private Storage-as-a-Service; and hybrid/private cloud. Then those who have already implemented were asked which goals they actually achieved. The difference between the two answers revealed an expectation gap.
-- Server virtualization projects were most successful, with only a 4 percent average gap between expected and realized goals. The biggest
gaps occurred in scalability, reducing capital expenditures and reducing operating expenditures.
-- The average shortfall in storage virtualization was 33 percent, with disappointments coming in agility, scalability and reducing operating expenditures.
-- Respondents reported an average gap between expected and realized goals of 26 percent with endpoint/desktop virtualization. They cited
disappointments in new endpoint deployment, application delivery and application compatibility.
-- Seventy-seven percent of organizations are considering private Storage-as-a-Service, but these projects are challenging to implement
and fall short of expectations by 37 percent. For example, complexity reduction was a goal for 84 percent of respondents, but reached by
only 44 percent.
These gaps are a hallmark of early stage markets where expectations are out of step with reality. As the virtualization and cloud markets continue to mature, we expect to see those gaps close.
Increasing Focus on Business-Critical Applications Organizations investing in virtualization and hybrid/private cloud technologies tend to follow a similar path, starting by virtualizing less critical applications such as test and development environments and progressing to more important applications such as email and collaboration; line of business; eCommerce and supply chain; and ERP/CRM.
The survey shows that organizations are leveraging virtualization for business-critical applications. Of enterprises who are implementing virtualization, more than half (59 percent) plan to virtualize database applications in the next 12 months. Fifty-five percent plan to virtualize web applications, and 47 percent plan to virtualize email and calendar applications. Forty-one percent plan to virtualize ERP applications.
We found that organizations are more slowly leveraging hybrid/private cloud technologies for business-critical applications. An average of just 33 percent of business-critical applications such as ERP, accounting and CRM are in hybrid/private cloud environments. Respondents stated concerns over account, service, or traffic hijacking; authentication vulnerabilities; access vulnerabilities; disaster recovery; and encryption.
Quality of Service Challenges Emerge as Top Priorities As virtualization and private cloud technologies become more widely adopted, the cost and performance of storage is becoming increasingly top of mind. More than half of respondents (56 percent) said storage costs somewhat or significantly increased with server virtualization. Of those in the process of virtualizing storage, the top three reasons for deployment include reducing operating expenses (55 percent), improving storage performance (54 percent), and improving disaster recovery readiness (53 percent).
Seventy-six percent of enterprises who have implemented server virtualization indicated that security was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Sixty-three percent listed security as a significant/extreme challenge to implementing server virtualization.
Performance issues are a factor for the majority of organizations. Seventy-six percent of those who have implemented server virtualization stated that performance was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Seventy-two percent of organizations that have implemented hybrid/private clouds cited performance as a significant/extreme challenge.
Among enterprises that have implemented server virtualization, reliability was the number one concern. Seventy-eight percent said it was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing mission-critical applications on virtualized servers. Of those who have implemented storage virtualization, 83 percent stated uptime and availability as an important goal.
According to the survey findings, 46 percent of CFOs who are implementing hybrid/private clouds are less than "somewhat open" to moving business-critical applications into those environments. Forty-four percent of CEOs are cautious about moving these applications.
Main concerns cited about virtualization and hybrid cloud deployments are reliability (78 percent), security (76 percent), and performance (76 percent).
In practice, many C-level concerns are unfounded based on responses from IT. For example, concerns about performance are a top reason cited for caution, yet 78 to 85 percent of those who deployed server virtualization achieved their goals related to performance.
Comment from John Magee, vice president of virtualization and cloud solutions, Symantec: Cloud computing represents a major shift within IT -- changing from a traditional IT delivery to a service-provider model. Moving to the cloud is a complex evolution for many companies and it's essential that IT and executives are aligned on initiatives. Virtualization is an enabler for private and hybrid clouds and our survey shows that planning a seamless move is critical to achieving all the simplicity, affordability and efficiency that these environments have to offer.
Recommendations
Enterprise IT's evolution to the cloud has a fair share of challenges, but also compelling rewards. Despite concerns, most enterprises are implementing virtualization and moving to a cloud computing future. For these enterprises, Symantec offers recommendations to help make the journey as smooth as possible.
-- Ensure alignment between IT and executives in virtualization and cloud initiatives: It is important to show that you can address C-level concerns such as security and availability. Show that their concerns, while important, can be successfully overcome by leveraging existing best practices and robust solutions that ensure valuable information and critical applications are protected and highly available.
-- Don't operate in a silo when it comes to cloud computing: Virtualization and cloud initiatives are most successful when implemented as mainstream, comprehensive IT initiatives. Because they involve all aspects of IT (servers, storage, network, applications, etc.) they can fail when managed as siloed "special projects." Rather, treat cloud as an IT-wide initiative with all departments included in planning and implementation.
-- Leverage and modernize your existing infrastructure: Before you're ready to implement hybrid/private cloud, make sure you are leveraging
the existing infrastructure to achieve the same efficiencies and then modernizing it as needed. Convert static servers, storage and networking into a virtualized pool of resources. Replace static provisioning with self-service provisioning, and make sure to implement monitoring and metering to demonstrate value to the business.
-- Set realistic expectations and track your results: Remember that despite the hype, cloud is a new and still maturing market. Do your
homework to set expectations that are realistic, then follow up and track results to identify ways to improve project efficiency going forward.
About the survey: Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey is the result of research conducted in April 2011 by Applied Research, which surveyed more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries worldwide. IT and C-level professionals responsible for computers, networks and technology resources at small, medium, and large enterprises (defined as 1,000-2,400, 2,500-4,999, and 5,000+ employees). The survey included more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Contact: http://www.symantec.com
Public Cloud Computing Services Expanding Rapidly
The rapid growth in the use of public cloud services indicates that cloud services are becoming more mainstream, causing growing pains for many companies, according to a survey. One in five executives says it's impossible to manage the disparate cloud services within their organization, while another 60 percent are worried about cloud sprawl -- the unmanaged adoption of public cloud services within an organization.
Despite these challenges, the survey shows cloud computing is maturing in the enterprise as CIOs increasingly look to cloud services to achieve business benefits, such as improved flexibility, reduced costs and helping to speed time to market.
One in five respondents says they have personally purchased a cloud service without the IT department's knowledge. While 60 percent of companies report they have policies in place that prohibit such actions, respondents say there are no real deterrents for purchasing cloud services by stealth. In fact, 29 percent report there are no ramifications whatsoever while another 48 percent say it is little more than a warning.
The survey also reveals a communication chasm. One-quarter of executives report they don't have open communication with the departments and business unit leaders that may be provisioning their own cloud services.
In terms of overall cloud computing adoption, the survey found 74 percent of companies are using some form of cloud services today -- a 25 percent growth in adoption since Avanade's September 2009 survey. Of those organizations that have yet to implement cloud, three-quarters say it's on the horizon.
With this growth in adoption also emerged three signs cloud computing is maturing:
1. Companies are increasing investments to secure, manage and support cloud.
2. There is a growing adoption and preference for private cloud.
3. Execs are starting to see cloud as a way to generate revenue.
Executives report they are investing in security solutions as well as people to ensure successful cloud deployments. In fact, 64 percent say they are investing in training for new and current employees to increase expertise in cloud technologies.
The survey also shows private cloud deployments are growing -- especially where critical, differentiating internal operations and customer services are at stake. Today, 43 percent of companies report they utilize private clouds, while an additional 34 percent say they will begin to do so in the next six to 12 months.
Further, companies are moving beyond internal employee-facing cloud services to use them with external customers. Many companies report they are now using cloud computing to deliver new products and services to customers, while more than one in five C-level executives believe cloud computing will increase revenues.
Comment from Tyson Hartman, global chief technology officer at Avanade: As is true with many forms of technology innovation, consumer technology often has a way of secretly creeping into the enterprise. Today, public cloud services are in a similar situation. The barrier to entry for many cloud capabilities continues to lower and our research shows some are so easy to adopt, they are outpacing the ability of IT leaders to manage them effectively. While policy is a place to start, managing cloud sprawl requires a real cooperation and dialogue between CIOs and their business counterparts. It's important that companies define a user-centric cloud strategy. With that strategy in hand, it's much easier to have an open dialogue in discovering what cloud services are already being used, where the gaps are and what new technologies the company should leverage to drive business value.
Comment from Larry Beck, senior director, cloud strategy at Avanade: Any decision to begin using cloud computing requires forethought, planning and preparation. Companies must identify their business objectives, determine which applications are prime targets for moving to the cloud, prove the business case and ensure the technology fits. The journey to cloud is an evolution that will occur over time. IT professionals should start with a clear plan, sound analysis, proven methodologies and practices, and a strong line of communication to the user community and corporate executives.
About the survey: The "Has Cloud Computing Matured?" survey was conducted by Kelton Research, an independent research firm, in March to April 2011, and surveyed 573 C-level executives, IT decision makers and business unit leaders at top companies located in 18 countries across North America, South America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Contact: For additional information or to download a copy of the executive summary, click here.
Contact: http://www.avanade.com
Despite these challenges, the survey shows cloud computing is maturing in the enterprise as CIOs increasingly look to cloud services to achieve business benefits, such as improved flexibility, reduced costs and helping to speed time to market.
One in five respondents says they have personally purchased a cloud service without the IT department's knowledge. While 60 percent of companies report they have policies in place that prohibit such actions, respondents say there are no real deterrents for purchasing cloud services by stealth. In fact, 29 percent report there are no ramifications whatsoever while another 48 percent say it is little more than a warning.
The survey also reveals a communication chasm. One-quarter of executives report they don't have open communication with the departments and business unit leaders that may be provisioning their own cloud services.
In terms of overall cloud computing adoption, the survey found 74 percent of companies are using some form of cloud services today -- a 25 percent growth in adoption since Avanade's September 2009 survey. Of those organizations that have yet to implement cloud, three-quarters say it's on the horizon.
With this growth in adoption also emerged three signs cloud computing is maturing:
1. Companies are increasing investments to secure, manage and support cloud.
2. There is a growing adoption and preference for private cloud.
3. Execs are starting to see cloud as a way to generate revenue.
Executives report they are investing in security solutions as well as people to ensure successful cloud deployments. In fact, 64 percent say they are investing in training for new and current employees to increase expertise in cloud technologies.
The survey also shows private cloud deployments are growing -- especially where critical, differentiating internal operations and customer services are at stake. Today, 43 percent of companies report they utilize private clouds, while an additional 34 percent say they will begin to do so in the next six to 12 months.
Further, companies are moving beyond internal employee-facing cloud services to use them with external customers. Many companies report they are now using cloud computing to deliver new products and services to customers, while more than one in five C-level executives believe cloud computing will increase revenues.
Comment from Tyson Hartman, global chief technology officer at Avanade: As is true with many forms of technology innovation, consumer technology often has a way of secretly creeping into the enterprise. Today, public cloud services are in a similar situation. The barrier to entry for many cloud capabilities continues to lower and our research shows some are so easy to adopt, they are outpacing the ability of IT leaders to manage them effectively. While policy is a place to start, managing cloud sprawl requires a real cooperation and dialogue between CIOs and their business counterparts. It's important that companies define a user-centric cloud strategy. With that strategy in hand, it's much easier to have an open dialogue in discovering what cloud services are already being used, where the gaps are and what new technologies the company should leverage to drive business value.
Comment from Larry Beck, senior director, cloud strategy at Avanade: Any decision to begin using cloud computing requires forethought, planning and preparation. Companies must identify their business objectives, determine which applications are prime targets for moving to the cloud, prove the business case and ensure the technology fits. The journey to cloud is an evolution that will occur over time. IT professionals should start with a clear plan, sound analysis, proven methodologies and practices, and a strong line of communication to the user community and corporate executives.
About the survey: The "Has Cloud Computing Matured?" survey was conducted by Kelton Research, an independent research firm, in March to April 2011, and surveyed 573 C-level executives, IT decision makers and business unit leaders at top companies located in 18 countries across North America, South America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Contact: For additional information or to download a copy of the executive summary, click here.
Contact: http://www.avanade.com
Exposing Enterprise Apps To Mobile Users Via The Cloud Raises Security Worries
Security is the top concern for connecting from mobile Cloud-based applications into the organization, accoding to a survey. The security challenges cited by 48 percent of the respondents included the problem of how to protect a mobile application itself from reverse-engineering, how to protect the Web Services used by the mobile application, and how to deter users from installing malicious mobile applications placed in app markets (such as the Android Market) by attackers.
Additionally, 26 percent of respondents felt that integration complexities were a challenge. This is to be expected as programming for mobile apps uses such lightweight protocols as REST and JSON, whilst the enterprise application development environment is characterized by enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft .NET, which tend to support heavyweight standards such as SOAP, rather than REST and JSON.
Other interesting data gleaned indicates that 53 percent of organizations are currently deploying mobile applications to customers with 47 percent deploying applications to employees and 24 percent deploying to partners. Of note, 29 percent said they were planning to deploy mobile applications, but had not done so at this time. Additionally, 18 percent did not have any current deployment plans.
Comment from Hugh Carroll, VP Marketing at Vordel: The survey results demonstrate that organizations need to govern the mobile app channel as it increasingly becomes an important channel to customers, partners and employees. Clearly mastering the security issue is a key concern for organizations and a challenge to adoption. Vordel is delivering API Gateway technology today to respond to this need, bridging mobile applications into the enterprise, via the Cloud.
About the survey: The survey was conducted by Vordel, an SOA and Cloud Services provider.The survey results were based on a sample pool of 78 respondents from 50 organizations (Fortune 5000 firms and Government Agencies). The typical respondents were Enterprise Architects, Senior IT Manager and Chief Security Officers. Date of poll -- May 19, 2011.
Contact: http://www.vordel.com
Additionally, 26 percent of respondents felt that integration complexities were a challenge. This is to be expected as programming for mobile apps uses such lightweight protocols as REST and JSON, whilst the enterprise application development environment is characterized by enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft .NET, which tend to support heavyweight standards such as SOAP, rather than REST and JSON.
Other interesting data gleaned indicates that 53 percent of organizations are currently deploying mobile applications to customers with 47 percent deploying applications to employees and 24 percent deploying to partners. Of note, 29 percent said they were planning to deploy mobile applications, but had not done so at this time. Additionally, 18 percent did not have any current deployment plans.
Comment from Hugh Carroll, VP Marketing at Vordel: The survey results demonstrate that organizations need to govern the mobile app channel as it increasingly becomes an important channel to customers, partners and employees. Clearly mastering the security issue is a key concern for organizations and a challenge to adoption. Vordel is delivering API Gateway technology today to respond to this need, bridging mobile applications into the enterprise, via the Cloud.
About the survey: The survey was conducted by Vordel, an SOA and Cloud Services provider.The survey results were based on a sample pool of 78 respondents from 50 organizations (Fortune 5000 firms and Government Agencies). The typical respondents were Enterprise Architects, Senior IT Manager and Chief Security Officers. Date of poll -- May 19, 2011.
Contact: http://www.vordel.com
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Growing Trust in Cloud Computing As Businesses Achieve Measurable Value
Global and regional trends in cloud computing adoption and usage reveal the importance of both infrastructure and workloads in considering a cloud computing model, according to a survey.
Findings:
-- Cloud computing is maturing rapidly, with 70 percent of respondents indicating they are either using or currently investigating cloud computing for remotely hosted applications or to store data
-- Of those organizations that have deployed cloud solutions, 60 percent reported that they are already seeing business value
-- Among current cloud users, 92 percent stated that infrastructure was an important part of their decision to move to a cloud computing model
As cloud adoption continues to increase, so does the value of the data that lives in the cloud. Sixty-three percent of those using the cloud to host data estimated they store more than $250,000 worth of data in the cloud, and by evaluating this survey field alone as a sample of the industry at large, it can be estimated that billions of dollars in active data currently lives in the cloud.
This new era of IT is being driven by the CIO, head of IT or IT director more than 50 percent of the time, placing a huge amount of importance on the technology at the core of the cloud. Ninety-two percent of respondents currently using the cloud stated that infrastructure was important in their decision to adopt cloud computing, dispelling the myth that cloud customers do not care to know about the physical servers housing and running their data. Global private sector respondents also identified the workloads they believe most suited potentially for cloud computing as email, finance/accounting and Web serving, in that order.
With such a clear level of importance placed on the IT infrastructure of the cloud, it is imperative for vendors to move beyond the hype and talk about the real issues at the core of the cloud. Email, finance/account and web serving are all fast-growing workloads in the cloud, yet have significantly different compute demands. AMD is taking the lead in approaching cloud computing from a workload-based model that provides differentiated solutions based on the unique requirements of the cloud provider and customer.
The survey also found that local and federal mandates are having a significant impact in accelerating cloud adoption. In the U.S., public sector respondents felt government policies have accelerated a move to the cloud more than twice as many times as those who felt it has decelerated adoption, primarily citing the shift as a way to reduce costs. Nearly half of the worldwide public sector respondents indicated budget restrictions are driving a more rapid adoption of cloud solutions.
One key hurdle that still remains for the public sector to fully embrace cloud computing is having the necessary IT skills in-house to support the deployment of cloud solutions. Currently, 43 percent of public sector respondents did not feel they had the skills in place to support cloud versus only 23 percent in the private sector.
Other findings:
-- Seventy-four percent of U.S. organizations are using or investigating cloud solutions, followed by 68 percent in Asia and 58 percent in Europe
-- Nearly 1 in 10 organizations in the U.S. estimate they store more than $10 million worth of data in the cloud. However, 63 percent of global respondents still view security as one of the greatest risks associated with the model
-- For those currently using the cloud, 75 percent had the necessary IT skills to implement the solution versus only 39 percent of those who are currently investigating cloud today
-- Cloud users are able to access their services primarily via a PC (90 percent), followed by smartphone (56 percent), tablet (37 percent) and thin client (32 percent)
Comment from Patrick Patla, general manager and vice president, Server and Embedded Divisions: Based on the findings of this global study, AMD believes it is time for the industry to re-shape the way we think about cloud technology. The findings point to the fact that while the era of cloud computing has arrived, there are radically different attitudes, approaches, concerns and levels of maturity depending on business environment. As an industry, we must provide clear guidance about how to optimize hardware and software for all types of clouds, focusing on custom parts for specific workloads that are prevalent in the cloud and the appropriate balance of performance, power and cost efficiency they require.
About the survey: The survey was conducted by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) among IT decision makers in public and private sector organizations in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Contact: http://www.amd.com
Findings:
-- Cloud computing is maturing rapidly, with 70 percent of respondents indicating they are either using or currently investigating cloud computing for remotely hosted applications or to store data
-- Of those organizations that have deployed cloud solutions, 60 percent reported that they are already seeing business value
-- Among current cloud users, 92 percent stated that infrastructure was an important part of their decision to move to a cloud computing model
As cloud adoption continues to increase, so does the value of the data that lives in the cloud. Sixty-three percent of those using the cloud to host data estimated they store more than $250,000 worth of data in the cloud, and by evaluating this survey field alone as a sample of the industry at large, it can be estimated that billions of dollars in active data currently lives in the cloud.
This new era of IT is being driven by the CIO, head of IT or IT director more than 50 percent of the time, placing a huge amount of importance on the technology at the core of the cloud. Ninety-two percent of respondents currently using the cloud stated that infrastructure was important in their decision to adopt cloud computing, dispelling the myth that cloud customers do not care to know about the physical servers housing and running their data. Global private sector respondents also identified the workloads they believe most suited potentially for cloud computing as email, finance/accounting and Web serving, in that order.
With such a clear level of importance placed on the IT infrastructure of the cloud, it is imperative for vendors to move beyond the hype and talk about the real issues at the core of the cloud. Email, finance/account and web serving are all fast-growing workloads in the cloud, yet have significantly different compute demands. AMD is taking the lead in approaching cloud computing from a workload-based model that provides differentiated solutions based on the unique requirements of the cloud provider and customer.
The survey also found that local and federal mandates are having a significant impact in accelerating cloud adoption. In the U.S., public sector respondents felt government policies have accelerated a move to the cloud more than twice as many times as those who felt it has decelerated adoption, primarily citing the shift as a way to reduce costs. Nearly half of the worldwide public sector respondents indicated budget restrictions are driving a more rapid adoption of cloud solutions.
One key hurdle that still remains for the public sector to fully embrace cloud computing is having the necessary IT skills in-house to support the deployment of cloud solutions. Currently, 43 percent of public sector respondents did not feel they had the skills in place to support cloud versus only 23 percent in the private sector.
Other findings:
-- Seventy-four percent of U.S. organizations are using or investigating cloud solutions, followed by 68 percent in Asia and 58 percent in Europe
-- Nearly 1 in 10 organizations in the U.S. estimate they store more than $10 million worth of data in the cloud. However, 63 percent of global respondents still view security as one of the greatest risks associated with the model
-- For those currently using the cloud, 75 percent had the necessary IT skills to implement the solution versus only 39 percent of those who are currently investigating cloud today
-- Cloud users are able to access their services primarily via a PC (90 percent), followed by smartphone (56 percent), tablet (37 percent) and thin client (32 percent)
Comment from Patrick Patla, general manager and vice president, Server and Embedded Divisions: Based on the findings of this global study, AMD believes it is time for the industry to re-shape the way we think about cloud technology. The findings point to the fact that while the era of cloud computing has arrived, there are radically different attitudes, approaches, concerns and levels of maturity depending on business environment. As an industry, we must provide clear guidance about how to optimize hardware and software for all types of clouds, focusing on custom parts for specific workloads that are prevalent in the cloud and the appropriate balance of performance, power and cost efficiency they require.
About the survey: The survey was conducted by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) among IT decision makers in public and private sector organizations in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Contact: http://www.amd.com
Virtualization Of Data Centers Presents Challenges For Application, Network Security
IT departments are turning to virtualization, with half of the respondents having either implemented or are planning to deploy private clouds, but they are facing inherent challenges that arise when applications are decoupled from the physical resources they rely on, introducing new obstacles such as traffic bottlenecks, inconsistent network policies and security loopholes, according to a survey.
Sixty-two percent are planning or engaged in data center upgrades, many due to increased use of virtualization. Additionally, 29 percent report that scaling server virtualization is a concern and 32 percent report that bandwidth and traffic engineering are pressing issues. The results show that virtualization comes at a cost and that traditional networking architectures are not always best-suited to handle the demands of a virtualized environment. Application security can fail when subjected to data center-wide server virtualization and application mobility.
IT departments view targeted attacks and security breaches as the biggest threats to the next-generation data center. When asked to rate security challenges, 77 percent rate threat protection (i.e., intrusion prevention) as "critical" or "important". Twenty-six percent view targeted attacks as their biggest concerns and 24 percent think security breaches are their biggest concerns. However, although half are relying on the same security model for virtualization they used with physical servers, 18 percent have not decided this is the best approach when securing virtual servers.
Forty percent said that moving virtual machines is challenging because it introduces operational complexity and 25 percent indicated a concern with securing trust boundaries.
Comment from Rees Johnson, senior vice president and general manager for network security, McAfee: Companies investing in full scale virtualization are now running into network and security challenges. Data centers have to be upgraded for the stringent demands of virtualization. Brocade and McAfee have partnered to address the key roadblocks for data center virtualization, providing new ways to ensure agility and efficiency in the network while providing comprehensive security services. Virtualization, especially in the context of private clouds, introduces unique operational and security challenges. The ability to move virtual machines is essential to creating flexible virtual data centers, yet this same flexibility introduces operational complexity and makes it much more difficult to maintain traditional trust boundaries.
About the survey: McAfee commissioned the study conducted by Network World. The study surveyed 100 IT professionals and security decision makers in North American companies with 500 or more employees.
Contact: Click here.
Sixty-two percent are planning or engaged in data center upgrades, many due to increased use of virtualization. Additionally, 29 percent report that scaling server virtualization is a concern and 32 percent report that bandwidth and traffic engineering are pressing issues. The results show that virtualization comes at a cost and that traditional networking architectures are not always best-suited to handle the demands of a virtualized environment. Application security can fail when subjected to data center-wide server virtualization and application mobility.
IT departments view targeted attacks and security breaches as the biggest threats to the next-generation data center. When asked to rate security challenges, 77 percent rate threat protection (i.e., intrusion prevention) as "critical" or "important". Twenty-six percent view targeted attacks as their biggest concerns and 24 percent think security breaches are their biggest concerns. However, although half are relying on the same security model for virtualization they used with physical servers, 18 percent have not decided this is the best approach when securing virtual servers.
Forty percent said that moving virtual machines is challenging because it introduces operational complexity and 25 percent indicated a concern with securing trust boundaries.
Comment from Rees Johnson, senior vice president and general manager for network security, McAfee: Companies investing in full scale virtualization are now running into network and security challenges. Data centers have to be upgraded for the stringent demands of virtualization. Brocade and McAfee have partnered to address the key roadblocks for data center virtualization, providing new ways to ensure agility and efficiency in the network while providing comprehensive security services. Virtualization, especially in the context of private clouds, introduces unique operational and security challenges. The ability to move virtual machines is essential to creating flexible virtual data centers, yet this same flexibility introduces operational complexity and makes it much more difficult to maintain traditional trust boundaries.
About the survey: McAfee commissioned the study conducted by Network World. The study surveyed 100 IT professionals and security decision makers in North American companies with 500 or more employees.
Contact: Click here.
Cloud Computing Adoption Growing In China, Hong Kong
Cloud computing adoption is on the rise in Hong Kong and China, according to a survey. Results showed that 20 percent of enterprises plan to use it for non-mission-critical IT services this year, doubling the number from last year. Meanwhile, the number of enterprises that plan to use cloud for mission-critical services rose from 7 percent to 11 percent, and those that do not use cloud for any IT services has decreased by 6 points to 41 percent.
The survey also found that 40 percent of the information security and IT audit professionals in Hong Kong and China believe the risk of employees using personal mobile devices for work activities outweigh the benefits, with 33 percent believing that mobile devices owned by employees pose the greatest risk, compared to 29 percent who chose work-supplied flash drives as riskiest. More than 70 percent of respondents reported that their enterprises have a security policy in place for mobile computing, yet, 39 percent believe that there is a need to update or better communicate theirs. In light of this, 35 percent view that increasing risk awareness among employees is the most important action that enterprises should take to improve IT risk management.
The survey also looked at what IT professionals thought about their enterprises' staffing requirements. With information security and risk management becoming increasingly important for businesses, there is no surprise that a high percentage (64 percent) of respondents expects their organization's staffing needs for information security to increase over the next 12 months, with 59 percent expecting the need to add risk management staff.
Comment from Michael Yung, president of the ISACA China Hong Kong Chapter: With the China economy growing at a rapid pace, enterprises' needs for agility and scalability have never been greater. Cloud computing certainly fits the bill, and there is no surprise to see cloud adoption increasing so quickly here. Many C-suite decision makers have commissioned their IT professionals to carefully assess the applicability and analyze the risk against benefits for deploying cloud technology. The next 12 months will be interesting, as a number of them will start to deploy cloud computing in areas they think will reap benefits to the organizations. Today, enterprises need to place stronger emphasis on and better align three levels of governance, namely corporate, IT and data governance. They hold the key to the mitigation of cloud-related risks.
About the survey: ISACA polled 2,765 ISACA members from around the world, including 80 members in Hong Kong and China, in March 2011.
Contact: http://www.isaca.org
The survey also found that 40 percent of the information security and IT audit professionals in Hong Kong and China believe the risk of employees using personal mobile devices for work activities outweigh the benefits, with 33 percent believing that mobile devices owned by employees pose the greatest risk, compared to 29 percent who chose work-supplied flash drives as riskiest. More than 70 percent of respondents reported that their enterprises have a security policy in place for mobile computing, yet, 39 percent believe that there is a need to update or better communicate theirs. In light of this, 35 percent view that increasing risk awareness among employees is the most important action that enterprises should take to improve IT risk management.
The survey also looked at what IT professionals thought about their enterprises' staffing requirements. With information security and risk management becoming increasingly important for businesses, there is no surprise that a high percentage (64 percent) of respondents expects their organization's staffing needs for information security to increase over the next 12 months, with 59 percent expecting the need to add risk management staff.
Comment from Michael Yung, president of the ISACA China Hong Kong Chapter: With the China economy growing at a rapid pace, enterprises' needs for agility and scalability have never been greater. Cloud computing certainly fits the bill, and there is no surprise to see cloud adoption increasing so quickly here. Many C-suite decision makers have commissioned their IT professionals to carefully assess the applicability and analyze the risk against benefits for deploying cloud technology. The next 12 months will be interesting, as a number of them will start to deploy cloud computing in areas they think will reap benefits to the organizations. Today, enterprises need to place stronger emphasis on and better align three levels of governance, namely corporate, IT and data governance. They hold the key to the mitigation of cloud-related risks.
About the survey: ISACA polled 2,765 ISACA members from around the world, including 80 members in Hong Kong and China, in March 2011.
Contact: http://www.isaca.org
SMB Cloud Services Adoption In Western Europe Expected To Double
Spending by Western Europe's 11 million small and medium businesses on cloud services is set to grow at a CAGR of 12.6 percent between now and 2015, according to a study.
Adoption of cloud services (SaaS, IaaS and Managed Services) will double. A key contributor to the impetus of the Cloud is the proliferation of mobile devices, according to a new market study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners.
Nearly two thirds of SMBs equip their employees with smart phones for business purposes, and tablet computers are also experiencing very rapid uptake, according to the study. 8 percent of SMBs plan to purchase over 1.5 million tablets for their businesses in the next 12 months, the study also found. Collaborative working services such as hosted document sharing and UC (conferencing, messaging and presence) are provoking the highest level of future interest.
Comment from Hugh Gibbs, VP Research at AMI in EMEA: The phenomenal expansion of mobile devices in the consumer world is having its effect on the SMB workplace. Users now want to take the things they can do in their private lives into their professional working practices: for example, accessing email, simple internet apps and social networking sites, or checking availability of colleagues -- and to do so wherever and whenever they need to. The cloud model's flexible payment model (pay per user per month) makes access to technology affordable for resource-constrained small and medium businesses. But equally important is that the cloud model eases and speeds up implementation of technology. 70 percent of European small businesses have no dedicated IT staff resources to draw on. So passing the responsibility for delivering applications to a skilled service provider who manages the whole process is not just attractive, for many, it now makes adoption possible. For hard-pressed mid-market IT departments, mobile and remote access to company IT resources presents huge security and administrative headaches. Outsourcing these workloads to service providers in more secure environments, managed 24x7 by dedicated and skilled staff, is also making great sense.
About the studies: AMI's 2010-2011 State of SMB Cloud Services Market studies are based on over 1,500 interviews with key SMB business and technical decision makers in Western Europe.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
Adoption of cloud services (SaaS, IaaS and Managed Services) will double. A key contributor to the impetus of the Cloud is the proliferation of mobile devices, according to a new market study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners.
Nearly two thirds of SMBs equip their employees with smart phones for business purposes, and tablet computers are also experiencing very rapid uptake, according to the study. 8 percent of SMBs plan to purchase over 1.5 million tablets for their businesses in the next 12 months, the study also found. Collaborative working services such as hosted document sharing and UC (conferencing, messaging and presence) are provoking the highest level of future interest.
Comment from Hugh Gibbs, VP Research at AMI in EMEA: The phenomenal expansion of mobile devices in the consumer world is having its effect on the SMB workplace. Users now want to take the things they can do in their private lives into their professional working practices: for example, accessing email, simple internet apps and social networking sites, or checking availability of colleagues -- and to do so wherever and whenever they need to. The cloud model's flexible payment model (pay per user per month) makes access to technology affordable for resource-constrained small and medium businesses. But equally important is that the cloud model eases and speeds up implementation of technology. 70 percent of European small businesses have no dedicated IT staff resources to draw on. So passing the responsibility for delivering applications to a skilled service provider who manages the whole process is not just attractive, for many, it now makes adoption possible. For hard-pressed mid-market IT departments, mobile and remote access to company IT resources presents huge security and administrative headaches. Outsourcing these workloads to service providers in more secure environments, managed 24x7 by dedicated and skilled staff, is also making great sense.
About the studies: AMI's 2010-2011 State of SMB Cloud Services Market studies are based on over 1,500 interviews with key SMB business and technical decision makers in Western Europe.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
43 Percent of Enterprises Have Had Security Issues With Cloud Service Providers
Most enterprises are apprehensive about adopting cloud computing, mainly because of security issues with cloud service providers.
Nearly half (43 percent) of enterprise IT decision makers reported a security lapse or issue with their cloud provider within the last 12 months, according to a recent global cloud security survey.
The survey confirmed that, on the whole, enterprises are moving toward the cloud at a brisk pace and are initiating a giant multiplicative wave of new deployments. Although slightly over 10 percent of the respondents currently have cloud computing projects in production, close to half are either implementing or piloting new cloud applications.
Despite cloud computing's growing popularity in most countries, confusion is still at play among enterprises, some of whom don't recognize what cloud computing services are. When presented with a list of cloud computing services, 93 percent of the respondents said they are currently working with at least one of them. And yet, 7 percent of the same respondents said that their company has no plans to deploy any cloud computing service - a contradiction.
While security is still the major hindrance toward cloud adoption, more enterprises are now perceiving performance and availability of cloud services to be of near-equal consideration. According to the survey, the top barriers respondents see in adopting cloud computing services are: Concerns over security of data or cloud infrastructure (50 percent) and performance and availability of cloud service (48 percent).
When it comes to safeguarding sensitive data stored in the cloud, enterprises turn to encryption. 85 percent of respondents(2) said they encrypt data stored in the cloud. And before taking the plunge into cloud adoption, more than half of survey respondents said they would be more likely to consider a cloud provider if encrypted data storage were included in the offering. Nevertheless, most commonly used encryption key management techniques used in the cloud today are vulnerable.
Comment from Dave Asprey, vice president of cloud security, Trend Micro: Based on our data, we see about 5 times more cloud applications coming online in the next few years, yet 43 percent of existing cloud users had a security incident last year. On top of that, some respondents didn't even know they were using the cloud, much less securing it. Given that many cloud service providers do not adequately add IT resources to security, the reality is that securing your cloud environment is not an option, it's a necessity.In the past, security concerns were the primary inhibitors to cloud adoption. Now, performance and availability have equal influence over IT decision makers. As we witnessed in recent data breach incidents, everything is linked - poor security causes downtime, as well as bad performance.
About the survey: The global survey was conducted by TrendMicro among 1,200 U.S., UK, Germany, India, Canada and Japan IT decision makers (200 respondents from each of the six countries). These professionals, from enterprises with over 500 employees, make purchase decisions for cloud computing services, server virtualization or Virtual Desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions.
Contact: http://www.trendmicro.com/cloud
Nearly half (43 percent) of enterprise IT decision makers reported a security lapse or issue with their cloud provider within the last 12 months, according to a recent global cloud security survey.
The survey confirmed that, on the whole, enterprises are moving toward the cloud at a brisk pace and are initiating a giant multiplicative wave of new deployments. Although slightly over 10 percent of the respondents currently have cloud computing projects in production, close to half are either implementing or piloting new cloud applications.
Despite cloud computing's growing popularity in most countries, confusion is still at play among enterprises, some of whom don't recognize what cloud computing services are. When presented with a list of cloud computing services, 93 percent of the respondents said they are currently working with at least one of them. And yet, 7 percent of the same respondents said that their company has no plans to deploy any cloud computing service - a contradiction.
While security is still the major hindrance toward cloud adoption, more enterprises are now perceiving performance and availability of cloud services to be of near-equal consideration. According to the survey, the top barriers respondents see in adopting cloud computing services are: Concerns over security of data or cloud infrastructure (50 percent) and performance and availability of cloud service (48 percent).
When it comes to safeguarding sensitive data stored in the cloud, enterprises turn to encryption. 85 percent of respondents(2) said they encrypt data stored in the cloud. And before taking the plunge into cloud adoption, more than half of survey respondents said they would be more likely to consider a cloud provider if encrypted data storage were included in the offering. Nevertheless, most commonly used encryption key management techniques used in the cloud today are vulnerable.
Comment from Dave Asprey, vice president of cloud security, Trend Micro: Based on our data, we see about 5 times more cloud applications coming online in the next few years, yet 43 percent of existing cloud users had a security incident last year. On top of that, some respondents didn't even know they were using the cloud, much less securing it. Given that many cloud service providers do not adequately add IT resources to security, the reality is that securing your cloud environment is not an option, it's a necessity.In the past, security concerns were the primary inhibitors to cloud adoption. Now, performance and availability have equal influence over IT decision makers. As we witnessed in recent data breach incidents, everything is linked - poor security causes downtime, as well as bad performance.
About the survey: The global survey was conducted by TrendMicro among 1,200 U.S., UK, Germany, India, Canada and Japan IT decision makers (200 respondents from each of the six countries). These professionals, from enterprises with over 500 employees, make purchase decisions for cloud computing services, server virtualization or Virtual Desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions.
Contact: http://www.trendmicro.com/cloud
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
28 Percent of U.S. Organizations Using Cloud Computing
Twenty-eight percent of U.S. organizations are using cloud computing today, with 73 percent reporting that their first step into the cloud was implementation of a single cloud application, according to a survey.
While 84 percent said they have already employed at least one cloud application, most do not yet identify themselves as cloud users who are implementing or maintaining cloud computing. Cloud computing is defined as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned.
Applications most commonly operated in the cloud are commodity applications such as email (50 percent of cloud users), file storage (39 percent), web and video conferencing (36 and 32 percent, respectively), and online learning (34 percent).
Respondents estimated that, on average, only 42 percent of their current services and applications have potential to operate in the cloud. Even the respondents who identified themselves as cloud users -- currently implementing or maintaining cloud computing -- said they expect to spend no more than one-third of their IT budget (34 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and at the same time, to save 31 percent of their IT budget by using cloud resources and applications. Non-cloud users said they expect to spend slightly more than one-quarter of their IT budget (28 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and to save 23 percent by using cloud computing resources and applications.
Among current cloud users, 84 percent said they cut application costs by moving to the cloud. On average, cloud users report saving 21 percent annually on those applications moved to the cloud.
Comment from David Cottingham, senior director, managed services at CDW: Many organizations are carefully -- and selectively -- moving into cloud computing, as well they should, because it represents a significant shift in how computing resources are provided and managed. With thoughtful planning, organizations can realize benefits that align directly with their organizational goals: consolidated IT infrastructure, reduced IT energy and capital costs, and "anywhere" access to documents and applications. The potential to cut costs while maintaining or even enhancing computing capabilities for end users presents a compelling case for investment in cloud computing. The fact that even current cloud users anticipate spending just a third of their IT budget on cloud computing within five years suggests that before wide-scale implementation, IT managers are taking a hard look at their IT governance, architecture, security and other prerequisites for cloud computing, in order to ensure that their implementations are successful.
About the survey: CDW LLC, a provider of technology products and services, conducted the Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, an assessment of current and future cloud computing use in business, government, healthcare and education among 1,200 IT professionals familiar with their organization's use of, or plans for, cloud computing. The poll includes findings specific to each of the eight industries surveyed during March 2011: small businesses, medium businesses, large businesses, the federal government, state and local governments, healthcare, higher education and K-12 public schools.
Contact: http://www.cdw.com/cloudtrackingpoll
Contact: http://www.cdw.com/cloud
While 84 percent said they have already employed at least one cloud application, most do not yet identify themselves as cloud users who are implementing or maintaining cloud computing. Cloud computing is defined as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned.
Applications most commonly operated in the cloud are commodity applications such as email (50 percent of cloud users), file storage (39 percent), web and video conferencing (36 and 32 percent, respectively), and online learning (34 percent).
Respondents estimated that, on average, only 42 percent of their current services and applications have potential to operate in the cloud. Even the respondents who identified themselves as cloud users -- currently implementing or maintaining cloud computing -- said they expect to spend no more than one-third of their IT budget (34 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and at the same time, to save 31 percent of their IT budget by using cloud resources and applications. Non-cloud users said they expect to spend slightly more than one-quarter of their IT budget (28 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and to save 23 percent by using cloud computing resources and applications.
Among current cloud users, 84 percent said they cut application costs by moving to the cloud. On average, cloud users report saving 21 percent annually on those applications moved to the cloud.
Comment from David Cottingham, senior director, managed services at CDW: Many organizations are carefully -- and selectively -- moving into cloud computing, as well they should, because it represents a significant shift in how computing resources are provided and managed. With thoughtful planning, organizations can realize benefits that align directly with their organizational goals: consolidated IT infrastructure, reduced IT energy and capital costs, and "anywhere" access to documents and applications. The potential to cut costs while maintaining or even enhancing computing capabilities for end users presents a compelling case for investment in cloud computing. The fact that even current cloud users anticipate spending just a third of their IT budget on cloud computing within five years suggests that before wide-scale implementation, IT managers are taking a hard look at their IT governance, architecture, security and other prerequisites for cloud computing, in order to ensure that their implementations are successful.
About the survey: CDW LLC, a provider of technology products and services, conducted the Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, an assessment of current and future cloud computing use in business, government, healthcare and education among 1,200 IT professionals familiar with their organization's use of, or plans for, cloud computing. The poll includes findings specific to each of the eight industries surveyed during March 2011: small businesses, medium businesses, large businesses, the federal government, state and local governments, healthcare, higher education and K-12 public schools.
Contact: http://www.cdw.com/cloudtrackingpoll
Contact: http://www.cdw.com/cloud
Majority Of Independent Business Owners Have Never Heard Of Cloud Computing
Small business owners apparently are clueless about cloud computing, according to a survey.
Findings:
-- 71 percent have never heard of cloud computing
-- 74 percent of those who have heard of cloud computing said they could not describe it
-- 22 percent said they had data or critical information, software or hardware in their office that may not be secure
-- Only 29 percent said that their critical computer hardware, software and data was backed up and stored offsite
Comment from Barry Sloane, President and CEO of The Small Business Authority: Cloud computing will be the next important trend in the U.S. economy for businesses large and small. There is no doubt that business owners will embrace the cloud concept and over time gravitate towards its massive benefits. We surveyed over 1,800 independent business owners and discovered that the concept of cloud computing has begun to disseminate into the marketplace, due primarily to large advertising programs by entities like Microsoft, Cisco and others. Business owners will need to understand what the cloud is and what it can do for their businesses in the areas of cost control, data security, data protection, accessibility, efficiency and productivity to facilitate a smooth running technological platform for their business. About 25 percent of our business owners said they understood what cloud computing was. However, when we drilled down deeper most, 78 percent, thought that their data was secure. Yet 71 percent stated their data was not backed up offsite. Server huggers beware. The cloud is approaching; the security blanket of the server in the closet onsite and having an assistant backup important business data and confidential client information needs to be behind us all. Our survey this month is quite telling about what independent business owners really need to know about the cloud and how misinformed they are about data safety and security.
About the survey: Conducted by Newtek Business Services, the monthly SB Authority Market Sentiment Survey polled approximately 1,800 small business respondents.
Contact: http://www.newtekbusinessservices.com
Findings:
-- 71 percent have never heard of cloud computing
-- 74 percent of those who have heard of cloud computing said they could not describe it
-- 22 percent said they had data or critical information, software or hardware in their office that may not be secure
-- Only 29 percent said that their critical computer hardware, software and data was backed up and stored offsite
Comment from Barry Sloane, President and CEO of The Small Business Authority: Cloud computing will be the next important trend in the U.S. economy for businesses large and small. There is no doubt that business owners will embrace the cloud concept and over time gravitate towards its massive benefits. We surveyed over 1,800 independent business owners and discovered that the concept of cloud computing has begun to disseminate into the marketplace, due primarily to large advertising programs by entities like Microsoft, Cisco and others. Business owners will need to understand what the cloud is and what it can do for their businesses in the areas of cost control, data security, data protection, accessibility, efficiency and productivity to facilitate a smooth running technological platform for their business. About 25 percent of our business owners said they understood what cloud computing was. However, when we drilled down deeper most, 78 percent, thought that their data was secure. Yet 71 percent stated their data was not backed up offsite. Server huggers beware. The cloud is approaching; the security blanket of the server in the closet onsite and having an assistant backup important business data and confidential client information needs to be behind us all. Our survey this month is quite telling about what independent business owners really need to know about the cloud and how misinformed they are about data safety and security.
About the survey: Conducted by Newtek Business Services, the monthly SB Authority Market Sentiment Survey polled approximately 1,800 small business respondents.
Contact: http://www.newtekbusinessservices.com
Despite Surge In Cloud Storage, SMBs Still Using Network-Attached Storage
Cloud-based storage solutions have not supplanted network-attached storage among small- and medium-sized business, research shows.
More than 70 percent of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) that use cloud-based storage solutions also use networked-attached storage (NAS).
While SMB NAS represents a smaller portion of the total NAS market, SMB NAS is expected to grow at a much faster rate over the forecast period with revenues reaching $2 billion in 2015, says In-Stat .
Network-attached storage is a specialized server connected to a network that provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. NAS systems typically have the capability to support one or more hard disk drives (HDDs), and often include features such as RAID (redundant array of independent disks) and back up/replication services for all the devices attached to the network.
Findings:
-- 57.3 percent of SMB survey respondents use NAS technology products
-- North America and Europe will represent 84.6 percent of the revenue opportunity for the SMB NAS market.
-- Survey respondents that "don't use NAS" tend to have less than 50 employees.
Comment from Norm Bogen, VP Research, In-Stat: As the market has matured, the definition of NAS has taken on additional aspects. In particular, system management software has evolved into the most important feature of NAS adoption for several reasons, but primarily because it simplifies the user experience to set up and manage NAS products.
About the survey: In-Stat's Worldwide SMB Network-Attached Storage: Technology and Service Innovation Drive High Growth, (#IN1105046CT) provides survey results and coverage of the small and medium business (SMB) NAS market, including survey data relating to the use of NAS and cloud services, as well as an in depth overview of the market and technology trends.
Contact: http://www.in-stat.com
More than 70 percent of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) that use cloud-based storage solutions also use networked-attached storage (NAS).
While SMB NAS represents a smaller portion of the total NAS market, SMB NAS is expected to grow at a much faster rate over the forecast period with revenues reaching $2 billion in 2015, says In-Stat .
Network-attached storage is a specialized server connected to a network that provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. NAS systems typically have the capability to support one or more hard disk drives (HDDs), and often include features such as RAID (redundant array of independent disks) and back up/replication services for all the devices attached to the network.
Findings:
-- 57.3 percent of SMB survey respondents use NAS technology products
-- North America and Europe will represent 84.6 percent of the revenue opportunity for the SMB NAS market.
-- Survey respondents that "don't use NAS" tend to have less than 50 employees.
Comment from Norm Bogen, VP Research, In-Stat: As the market has matured, the definition of NAS has taken on additional aspects. In particular, system management software has evolved into the most important feature of NAS adoption for several reasons, but primarily because it simplifies the user experience to set up and manage NAS products.
About the survey: In-Stat's Worldwide SMB Network-Attached Storage: Technology and Service Innovation Drive High Growth, (#IN1105046CT) provides survey results and coverage of the small and medium business (SMB) NAS market, including survey data relating to the use of NAS and cloud services, as well as an in depth overview of the market and technology trends.
Contact: http://www.in-stat.com
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
CIOs Say Cloud Computing Pays Off
Leading financial technology executives say they want innovations that allow them to process more data more quickly, cheaply and reliably, a survey has found. One of those innovations they are especially impressed with is cloud computing.
When asked what infrastructure investment areas have yielded the most return on investment (ROI) in the last year, cloud computing received 45 percent of the responses, another 33 percent said low-latency trading and 23 percent said complex event processing (CEP).
About the survey: The Bloomberg survey was taken at Bloomberg LINK's first Enterprise Technology Summit, an invitation-only seminar that brought together more than 100 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and technology decision-makers from major financial services firms.
Contact: http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/
When asked what infrastructure investment areas have yielded the most return on investment (ROI) in the last year, cloud computing received 45 percent of the responses, another 33 percent said low-latency trading and 23 percent said complex event processing (CEP).
About the survey: The Bloomberg survey was taken at Bloomberg LINK's first Enterprise Technology Summit, an invitation-only seminar that brought together more than 100 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and technology decision-makers from major financial services firms.
Contact: http://www.bloomberg.com/enterprise/
More Than 68 Percent Of Federal IT Officials Support Private Or Hybrid Models
Government and higher ed IT professionals prefer private and hybrid cloud models, according to a survey. The results cast light on the critical importance of long-term planning and management of cloud computing, having an "exit strategy," ensuring security, and successfully managing virtualized environments.
Key findings among federal government respondents:
-- The overwhelming majority of federal respondents (90.3 percent) said they don't have or are unaware if they have a cloud computing exit strategy, which agencies need if they want to move their data and/or change cloud providers.
-- The majority of federal IT professionals (68.1 percent) believe that private or hybrid clouds will best meet their organizational needs five years or more from now.
-- While the plurality of federal respondents (28.0 percent) named cost savings as their biggest incentive to adopt cloud computing, a large number of federal IT professionals (21.1 percent) believe that cloud computing will provide them with better mission support.
-- A very small percentage of public sector respondents (6.9 percent) see the public cloud model as a viable long-term option for their organization.
-- The majority of federal survey participants (64.7 percent) report that there is some level of confusion at their organization about the distinction between cloud computing and virtualization.
-- Federal respondents (56.4 percent) believe that existing federal security standards and regulations (such as FISMA & FedRAMP) need to be supplemented with additional cloud security standards and regulations, best practices and guidelines.
-- The majority of federal IT professionals (62.2 percent) said that Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra's initiative to eliminate at least 800 of the government's data centers by 2015 is somewhat to very feasible.
-- According to federal respondents, lack of in-house expertise is a bigger barrier to private cloud adoption than upfront costs.
Comment from Paul Garver, chief executive officer of Quest Software Public Sector: Cloud is not the only solution to every problem, but with proper planning and management, can provide numerous benefits to public sector organizations.
About the survey : Quest Software Public Sector, Inc., a subsidiary of Quest Software, sponsored the survey of federal, state and local, and higher education IT professionals. The survey was conducted by the School of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Norwich University, which gathered data from 646 respondents.
Contact: http://www.quest.com
Key findings among federal government respondents:
-- The overwhelming majority of federal respondents (90.3 percent) said they don't have or are unaware if they have a cloud computing exit strategy, which agencies need if they want to move their data and/or change cloud providers.
-- The majority of federal IT professionals (68.1 percent) believe that private or hybrid clouds will best meet their organizational needs five years or more from now.
-- While the plurality of federal respondents (28.0 percent) named cost savings as their biggest incentive to adopt cloud computing, a large number of federal IT professionals (21.1 percent) believe that cloud computing will provide them with better mission support.
-- A very small percentage of public sector respondents (6.9 percent) see the public cloud model as a viable long-term option for their organization.
-- The majority of federal survey participants (64.7 percent) report that there is some level of confusion at their organization about the distinction between cloud computing and virtualization.
-- Federal respondents (56.4 percent) believe that existing federal security standards and regulations (such as FISMA & FedRAMP) need to be supplemented with additional cloud security standards and regulations, best practices and guidelines.
-- The majority of federal IT professionals (62.2 percent) said that Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra's initiative to eliminate at least 800 of the government's data centers by 2015 is somewhat to very feasible.
-- According to federal respondents, lack of in-house expertise is a bigger barrier to private cloud adoption than upfront costs.
Comment from Paul Garver, chief executive officer of Quest Software Public Sector: Cloud is not the only solution to every problem, but with proper planning and management, can provide numerous benefits to public sector organizations.
About the survey : Quest Software Public Sector, Inc., a subsidiary of Quest Software, sponsored the survey of federal, state and local, and higher education IT professionals. The survey was conducted by the School of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Norwich University, which gathered data from 646 respondents.
Contact: http://www.quest.com
Deployment Of Cloud Services Soars Among Multinationals
Adoption of cloud services is picking up pace among large organizations, with telecom providers well positioned to take advantage, according to a survey. Cloud services adoption is up 61 percent from April 2010 with 45 percent of multinational companies (MNCs) already using cloud sourcing for at least some elements of key IT services.
Asia-Pacific MNCs are reporting the greatest cloud interest, with 63 percent uptake across all cloud services categories; networking, communications, applications, corporate IT systems, as well as data management, security and backup.
Around the globe, enterprises have already moved significant resources to the cloud and are ready to move more application services. The dominant areas of cloud services uptake are in data backup and storage, at 51 percent of respondents, with an additional 33 percent reporting their intention to procure cloud data backup and storage services in the next 24 months. Cloud uptake is permeating all sectors. Finance and insurance multinationals have adopted cloud services for some elements of corporate IT systems (56 percent), whereas manufacturing is embracing cloud components for networking and data management (63 percent and 59 percent, respectively).
Sectors are also placing different applications in cloud environments. Professional services single out Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (50 percent) while finance and insurance places strong emphasis on document management (50 percent). Manufacturing places most value on messaging (41 percent) and CRM (41 percent).
Seventy-five percent of MNCs rate scalability of capacity and matching capacity to fluctuating demand as the main benefits from the use of cloud services, with increased speed of provisioning coming in a close third (72 percent). Cost transparency is regarded as least important with only 24 percent citing this as a major benefit.
Telecommunication providers are emerging as trusted partners and credible suppliers for cloud services, increasing from 37 percent in 2010 to 49 percent in 2011.
Comment from Evan Kirchheimer, Practice Leader, Enterprise Services, at Ovum: We believe the majority of MNCs are currently between "early" and "adolescent" adoption phases of cloud-based services, with broader and deeper adoption being contemplated. Greater adoption is dependent on the resolution of security, governance and reliability and once these concerns are addressed through standardised, tested offers from service providers, more large enterprises will feel comfortable positioning cloud as a preferred procurement option.
About the study: Ovum analysts interviewed CIOs, telecoms managers and/or IT directors with global responsibility for communications services (fixed, mobile, voice, data, IT) at 102 multinational corporations during April and May 2011.
Contact: http://www.cw.com
Asia-Pacific MNCs are reporting the greatest cloud interest, with 63 percent uptake across all cloud services categories; networking, communications, applications, corporate IT systems, as well as data management, security and backup.
Around the globe, enterprises have already moved significant resources to the cloud and are ready to move more application services. The dominant areas of cloud services uptake are in data backup and storage, at 51 percent of respondents, with an additional 33 percent reporting their intention to procure cloud data backup and storage services in the next 24 months. Cloud uptake is permeating all sectors. Finance and insurance multinationals have adopted cloud services for some elements of corporate IT systems (56 percent), whereas manufacturing is embracing cloud components for networking and data management (63 percent and 59 percent, respectively).
Sectors are also placing different applications in cloud environments. Professional services single out Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (50 percent) while finance and insurance places strong emphasis on document management (50 percent). Manufacturing places most value on messaging (41 percent) and CRM (41 percent).
Seventy-five percent of MNCs rate scalability of capacity and matching capacity to fluctuating demand as the main benefits from the use of cloud services, with increased speed of provisioning coming in a close third (72 percent). Cost transparency is regarded as least important with only 24 percent citing this as a major benefit.
Telecommunication providers are emerging as trusted partners and credible suppliers for cloud services, increasing from 37 percent in 2010 to 49 percent in 2011.
Comment from Evan Kirchheimer, Practice Leader, Enterprise Services, at Ovum: We believe the majority of MNCs are currently between "early" and "adolescent" adoption phases of cloud-based services, with broader and deeper adoption being contemplated. Greater adoption is dependent on the resolution of security, governance and reliability and once these concerns are addressed through standardised, tested offers from service providers, more large enterprises will feel comfortable positioning cloud as a preferred procurement option.
About the study: Ovum analysts interviewed CIOs, telecoms managers and/or IT directors with global responsibility for communications services (fixed, mobile, voice, data, IT) at 102 multinational corporations during April and May 2011.
Contact: http://www.cw.com
Cloud Computing Poised To Take Off At Companies
Sixty percent of global CIOs report that their organizations are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years as a means of growing their businesses and achieving competitive advantage, according to a study. The figure nearly doubles the number of CIOs who said they would utilize cloud in a 2009 study.
As demand for ever-growing amounts of information continues to increase, companies are seeking simple and direct access to data and applications that cloud computing delivers in a cost-efficient, always-available manner. The use of cloud, which began in supporting deployments mainly inside companies, has now also grown common between organizations and their partners and customers. in 2009, only a third of CIOs said they planned to pursue cloud to gain a competitive advantage. This year's study shows a dramatic increase in the focus on cloud, particularly in media and entertainment, which rose to 73 percent, automotive (70 percent) and telecommunications (69 percent).
From a country standpoint, seven out of 10 CIOs in the U.S., Japan and South Korea, and 68 percent in China, now identify cloud as a top priority. This is dramatically up from 2009, when CIO interest in cloud hovered at about a third in each of these countries.
The study also found that more than four out of five CIOs (83 percent) see business intelligence and analytics as top priorities for their businesses as they seek ways to act upon the growing amounts of data that are now at their disposal. CIOs are also increasingly turning their attention to mobile computing to keep pace with the fast-changing marketplace. As the proliferation of mobile devices with enhanced functionality and mobile applications that support business productivity and new market opportunities continues to grow, mobile computing and mobility solutions are now seen by nearly three-quarters of CIOs (74 percent) as a game-changer for their businesses -- up from 68 percent in 2009.
Just as analytics, cloud and mobility have become dominant areas for CIOs, other areas are taking up less of their time, although this does not mean they are any less important. Virtualization, risk management and compliance, for example, have moved down on the CIOs "visionary plan list" but this is the result of virtualization become more mainstream (and less the specific responsibility of CIOs) and risk gradually moving to a dedicated risk officer.
Comment from said Jeanette Horan, vice president and Chief Information Officer, IBM: As technology becomes both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential. This study provides key evidence of how the capabilities of IT are aligning perfectly with the aspirations of business leaders. The winners will be those companies that understand the power of technologies like cloud, analytics and mobility, and can harness that power to transform their businesses.
About the study: IBM's 2011 study among chief information officers is the product of face-to-face interviews with CIOs from diverse organizations in 71 countries, 18 industries and organizations of every size.
Contact: http://www.IBM.com
As demand for ever-growing amounts of information continues to increase, companies are seeking simple and direct access to data and applications that cloud computing delivers in a cost-efficient, always-available manner. The use of cloud, which began in supporting deployments mainly inside companies, has now also grown common between organizations and their partners and customers. in 2009, only a third of CIOs said they planned to pursue cloud to gain a competitive advantage. This year's study shows a dramatic increase in the focus on cloud, particularly in media and entertainment, which rose to 73 percent, automotive (70 percent) and telecommunications (69 percent).
From a country standpoint, seven out of 10 CIOs in the U.S., Japan and South Korea, and 68 percent in China, now identify cloud as a top priority. This is dramatically up from 2009, when CIO interest in cloud hovered at about a third in each of these countries.
The study also found that more than four out of five CIOs (83 percent) see business intelligence and analytics as top priorities for their businesses as they seek ways to act upon the growing amounts of data that are now at their disposal. CIOs are also increasingly turning their attention to mobile computing to keep pace with the fast-changing marketplace. As the proliferation of mobile devices with enhanced functionality and mobile applications that support business productivity and new market opportunities continues to grow, mobile computing and mobility solutions are now seen by nearly three-quarters of CIOs (74 percent) as a game-changer for their businesses -- up from 68 percent in 2009.
Just as analytics, cloud and mobility have become dominant areas for CIOs, other areas are taking up less of their time, although this does not mean they are any less important. Virtualization, risk management and compliance, for example, have moved down on the CIOs "visionary plan list" but this is the result of virtualization become more mainstream (and less the specific responsibility of CIOs) and risk gradually moving to a dedicated risk officer.
Comment from said Jeanette Horan, vice president and Chief Information Officer, IBM: As technology becomes both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential. This study provides key evidence of how the capabilities of IT are aligning perfectly with the aspirations of business leaders. The winners will be those companies that understand the power of technologies like cloud, analytics and mobility, and can harness that power to transform their businesses.
About the study: IBM's 2011 study among chief information officers is the product of face-to-face interviews with CIOs from diverse organizations in 71 countries, 18 industries and organizations of every size.
Contact: http://www.IBM.com
Open Source Growing Quickly In Mobile And Cloud Development
Open source is now fully embraced by both the public and private sectors, and is being implemented across a wide variety of markets and applications such as social publishing and big data, according to a survey. Uuser confidence in open source continues to grow dramatically, represented by the fact that users are much less concerned with historical impediments to adoption such as licensing or conforming to an organization's internal policies. The future is bright for open source. Emerging technology segments such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), private cloud, public cloud, and mobile are driving growth in open source.
Key findings:
-- Respondents have identified SaaS, cloud and mobile as the main areas that will have a dramatic impact on open source and that are driving growth.
-- In 2010 there were 3,800 new open source based projects in mobile, with 94 percent targeting Android and Apple iOS, more than double the number in 2009.
-- There are now more than 470 open source projects targeting cloud computing.
-- For the first time, supporting the fact that open source has truly gone mainstream, end users accounted for 60 percent of the survey respondents and the quality of responses continues to increase, spreading across all levels of IT management from developers to a large number of C-level executives.
-- The open source customers are now more focused on mainstream technology issues, including improved operational excellence around areas such as support, product management, feature functionality and return on investment. This is in contrast to earlier years where the survey had pointed to things such as the legal implications of licensing and conforming to internal policies.
-- 56 percent of respondents believe that more than half of software purchases made in the next five years will be open source.
-- 95 percent of respondents noted that a turbulent economy continues to be "good" for OSS, though for the first year ever, lower cost has been overtaken by freedom from vendor lock-in as what makes OSS more attractive.
-- When asked about revenue generating strategies likely to create value for vendors, 56 percent said that an annual, repeatable support and service agreement was the most likely.
Comment from Matt Aslett, senior analyst, enterprise software, The 451 Group: The 451 Group's research has previously shown that the benefits of open source software are many and varied and the survey highlights the fact that multiple factors are driving the increased adoption of open source software, including freedom from vendor lock-in, greater flexibility and lower cost.
About the survey: North Bridge Venture Partners conducted the annual Future of Open Source Survey in partnership with The 451 Group. More than 450 respondents took part, including representatives from both the vendor and non-vendor communities.
Contact: http://www.northbridge.com
Key findings:
-- Respondents have identified SaaS, cloud and mobile as the main areas that will have a dramatic impact on open source and that are driving growth.
-- In 2010 there were 3,800 new open source based projects in mobile, with 94 percent targeting Android and Apple iOS, more than double the number in 2009.
-- There are now more than 470 open source projects targeting cloud computing.
-- For the first time, supporting the fact that open source has truly gone mainstream, end users accounted for 60 percent of the survey respondents and the quality of responses continues to increase, spreading across all levels of IT management from developers to a large number of C-level executives.
-- The open source customers are now more focused on mainstream technology issues, including improved operational excellence around areas such as support, product management, feature functionality and return on investment. This is in contrast to earlier years where the survey had pointed to things such as the legal implications of licensing and conforming to internal policies.
-- 56 percent of respondents believe that more than half of software purchases made in the next five years will be open source.
-- 95 percent of respondents noted that a turbulent economy continues to be "good" for OSS, though for the first year ever, lower cost has been overtaken by freedom from vendor lock-in as what makes OSS more attractive.
-- When asked about revenue generating strategies likely to create value for vendors, 56 percent said that an annual, repeatable support and service agreement was the most likely.
Comment from Matt Aslett, senior analyst, enterprise software, The 451 Group: The 451 Group's research has previously shown that the benefits of open source software are many and varied and the survey highlights the fact that multiple factors are driving the increased adoption of open source software, including freedom from vendor lock-in, greater flexibility and lower cost.
About the survey: North Bridge Venture Partners conducted the annual Future of Open Source Survey in partnership with The 451 Group. More than 450 respondents took part, including representatives from both the vendor and non-vendor communities.
Contact: http://www.northbridge.com
U.S. SMBs Show Strong Preference for Cloud "Bundling"
Small and medium business (SMB) technology buyers in the U.S. are increasingly allocating a larger proportion of their spending to cloud-based services. According to a recent survey, that proportion was 10 percent in 2010, but is forecasted to rise to more than 15 percent in 2015. As this migration into the cloud accelerates, SMB buyers are showing a strong inclination to purchase bundled cloud offerings as opposed to a stand-alone application.
For example, AMI research shows that 38 percent of U.S. SMBs have indicated a strong preference for obtaining software as a service (SaaS) as part of a package/bundle, versus only 11 percent who are interested in a single service. One third of U.S. SMBs are interested in bundling multiple hosted infrastructure and remotely managed services offerings, versus 9 percent of firms who only want a single service.
Comment from Donald Best of AMI: A significant segment of U.S. SMBs prefer to deploy multiple cloud services in order to achieve flexibility, ease of IT management, and lower CAPEX. This is also driving an evolution in the channel ecosystem, as communications service providers and hosts increasingly offer bundles including productivity suites and other cloud-based applications.
About the study: AMI's soon to be published 2011 U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook -- Strategic and Tactical GTM Guide details preferences for SaaS and hosted infrastructure bundling, as well as hosted unified communications and productivity/collaboration suite bundles.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
For example, AMI research shows that 38 percent of U.S. SMBs have indicated a strong preference for obtaining software as a service (SaaS) as part of a package/bundle, versus only 11 percent who are interested in a single service. One third of U.S. SMBs are interested in bundling multiple hosted infrastructure and remotely managed services offerings, versus 9 percent of firms who only want a single service.
Comment from Donald Best of AMI: A significant segment of U.S. SMBs prefer to deploy multiple cloud services in order to achieve flexibility, ease of IT management, and lower CAPEX. This is also driving an evolution in the channel ecosystem, as communications service providers and hosts increasingly offer bundles including productivity suites and other cloud-based applications.
About the study: AMI's soon to be published 2011 U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook -- Strategic and Tactical GTM Guide details preferences for SaaS and hosted infrastructure bundling, as well as hosted unified communications and productivity/collaboration suite bundles.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
Monday, May 16, 2011
Improved Service Availability and Scalability Drive Cloud Adoption
Migration to cloud computing services has increased by 20 percent compared to results from 2010, according to a study. After implementing cloud services, respondents reported the greatest gains in increased application availability and scalability.
Key findings:
-- Cloud Computing on the Rise: Sixty-one percent of respondents have cloud computing services running on their network in 2011. Of these respondents, half have implemented some form of software-as-a-service (SaaS) like Salesforce.com or Google Apps. This was an increase of 10 percent when compared to SaaS adoption in 2010. Fifty percent have deployed private clouds. The 21 percent rise in adoption of private clouds was the largest gain made by a cloud service over last year. A smaller number (21 percent) rely on some form of platform as a service (PaaS) such as Microsoft Azure and Salesforce Force.
-- Cloud-Based Applications Climbing: Respondents indicated that percentage of applications running in the cloud will climb to 38 percent from 21 percent by mid-2012.
-- Improved Availability and User Experience: After deploying cloud services, 61 percent report improved application availability, which compared to only 4 percent reporting availability decreasing. Similarly, 52 percent indicated end-user experience improved compared to only 4 percent that said user experience worsened.
-- Increased Scalability: Over half of respondents reported their ability to scale applications to meet the demands of their organization had improved with cloud computing.
-- Troubleshooting Worsened: Sixty percent of respondents indicated that their ability to troubleshoot problems worsened or remained the same after migrating to the cloud.
-- Cloudy Monitoring: Fifty-two percent of respondents stated that their ability to monitor cloud performance worsened or remained the same after deploying cloud services.
Comment from said Brad Reinboldt, senior product manager of Network Instruments: Although cloud adopters have reported improvements in application availability and cost savings. These improvements aren't sustainable in the long run without appropriate monitoring tools. When trouble does hit, it falls in the lap of the organization's network team to prove that the problem is occurring on the cloud provider's side. Without proof, organizations will waste time finger pointing, jeopardizing any cost savings or efficiency improvements.
About the survey: Network Instruments conducted the onsite survey of 94 network engineers, IT managers and executives attending Interop.
Contact: http://www.networkinstruments.com
Key findings:
-- Cloud Computing on the Rise: Sixty-one percent of respondents have cloud computing services running on their network in 2011. Of these respondents, half have implemented some form of software-as-a-service (SaaS) like Salesforce.com or Google Apps. This was an increase of 10 percent when compared to SaaS adoption in 2010. Fifty percent have deployed private clouds. The 21 percent rise in adoption of private clouds was the largest gain made by a cloud service over last year. A smaller number (21 percent) rely on some form of platform as a service (PaaS) such as Microsoft Azure and Salesforce Force.
-- Cloud-Based Applications Climbing: Respondents indicated that percentage of applications running in the cloud will climb to 38 percent from 21 percent by mid-2012.
-- Improved Availability and User Experience: After deploying cloud services, 61 percent report improved application availability, which compared to only 4 percent reporting availability decreasing. Similarly, 52 percent indicated end-user experience improved compared to only 4 percent that said user experience worsened.
-- Increased Scalability: Over half of respondents reported their ability to scale applications to meet the demands of their organization had improved with cloud computing.
-- Troubleshooting Worsened: Sixty percent of respondents indicated that their ability to troubleshoot problems worsened or remained the same after migrating to the cloud.
-- Cloudy Monitoring: Fifty-two percent of respondents stated that their ability to monitor cloud performance worsened or remained the same after deploying cloud services.
Comment from said Brad Reinboldt, senior product manager of Network Instruments: Although cloud adopters have reported improvements in application availability and cost savings. These improvements aren't sustainable in the long run without appropriate monitoring tools. When trouble does hit, it falls in the lap of the organization's network team to prove that the problem is occurring on the cloud provider's side. Without proof, organizations will waste time finger pointing, jeopardizing any cost savings or efficiency improvements.
About the survey: Network Instruments conducted the onsite survey of 94 network engineers, IT managers and executives attending Interop.
Contact: http://www.networkinstruments.com
Security Vulnerabilities Are At All Time Highs for Mobile Devices
Enterprise and consumer mobile devices are being exposed to a record number of security threats, including a 400 percent increase in Android malware, as well as highly targeted Wi-Fi attacks, according to a report.
With smartphones set to eclipse PCs as the preferred method of both personal and professional computing, cyber criminals have turned their attention to mobile devices. At the same time, the gap between hacker capabilities and an organization's defenses is widening. These trends underscore the need for further mobile security awareness, as well as more stringent, better integrated mobile security policies and solutions.
Key report findings:
-- App Store Anxiety: The single greatest distribution point for mobile malware is application download, yet the vast majority of smartphone users are not employing an antivirus solution on their mobile device to scan for malware
-- Wi-Fi Worries: Mobile devices are increasingly susceptible to Wi-Fi attacks, including applications that enable an attacker to easily log into victim email and social networking applications
-- The Text Threat: 17 percent of all reported infections were due to SMS trojans that sent SMS messages to premium rate numbers, often at irretrievable cost to the user or enterprise
-- Device Loss and Theft: 1 in 20 Juniper customer devices were lost or stolen, requiring locate, lock or wipe commands to be issued
-- Risky Teen Behavior: 20 percent of all teens admit sending inappropriate or explicit material from a mobile device
-- "Droid Distress": The number of Android malware attacks increased 400 percent since Summer 2010
Comment from Jeff Wilson, principal analyst, security, at Infonetics Research: The last 18 months have produced a non-stop barrage of newsworthy threat events, and while most had been aimed at traditional desktop computers, hackers are now setting their sights on mobile devices. Operating system consolidation and the massive and growing installed base of powerful mobile devices is tempting profit-motivated hackers to target these devices. In a recent survey of large businesses, we found that nearly 40 percent considered smartphones the device type posing the largest security threat now. Businesses need security tools that provide comprehensive protection: from the core of the network to the diverse range of endpoints that all IT shops are now forced to manage and secure.
Comment from Dan Hoffman, chief mobile security evangelist at Juniper Networks: These findings reflect a perfect storm of users who are either uneducated on or disinterested in security, downloading readily available applications from unknown and unvetted sources in the complete absence of mobile device security solutions. App store processes of reactively removing applications identified as malicious after they have been installed by thousands of users is insufficient as a means to control malware proliferation. There are specifics steps users must take to mitigate mobile attacks. Both enterprises and consumers alike need to be aware of the growing risks associated with the convenience of having the Internet in the palm of your hand.
Recommendations for guarding against growing mobile malware threats for enterprises, government agencies and SMBs:
-- Employ on-device anti-malware to protect against malicious applications, spyware, infected SD cards and malware-based attacks against the mobile device
-- Use SSL VPN clients to effortlessly protect data in transit and ensure appropriate network authentication and access rights
-- Centralize locate and remote lock, wipe, backup and restore facilities for lost and stolen devices
-- Strongly enforce security policies, such as mandating the use of strong PINs/Passcodes
-- Leverage tools to help monitor device activity for data leakage and inappropriate use
-- Centralize mobile device administration to enforce and report on security policies
About the report: "Malicious Mobile Threats Report 2010/2011" was compiled by the Juniper Networks Global Threat Center (GTC) research facility, which conducts around-the-clock security, vulnerability and malware research tailored specifically to mobile device platforms and technologies. The GTC examines increasingly sophisticated attacks from 2010 and 2011, such as, Myournet/Droid Dream, Tap Snake and Geinimi as well as the pirating of the "Walk and Text" application, new threat vectors for mobile cybercrime, and the potential for exploitation and misuse of mobile devices and data.
Contact: http://www.juniper.net
With smartphones set to eclipse PCs as the preferred method of both personal and professional computing, cyber criminals have turned their attention to mobile devices. At the same time, the gap between hacker capabilities and an organization's defenses is widening. These trends underscore the need for further mobile security awareness, as well as more stringent, better integrated mobile security policies and solutions.
Key report findings:
-- App Store Anxiety: The single greatest distribution point for mobile malware is application download, yet the vast majority of smartphone users are not employing an antivirus solution on their mobile device to scan for malware
-- Wi-Fi Worries: Mobile devices are increasingly susceptible to Wi-Fi attacks, including applications that enable an attacker to easily log into victim email and social networking applications
-- The Text Threat: 17 percent of all reported infections were due to SMS trojans that sent SMS messages to premium rate numbers, often at irretrievable cost to the user or enterprise
-- Device Loss and Theft: 1 in 20 Juniper customer devices were lost or stolen, requiring locate, lock or wipe commands to be issued
-- Risky Teen Behavior: 20 percent of all teens admit sending inappropriate or explicit material from a mobile device
-- "Droid Distress": The number of Android malware attacks increased 400 percent since Summer 2010
Comment from Jeff Wilson, principal analyst, security, at Infonetics Research: The last 18 months have produced a non-stop barrage of newsworthy threat events, and while most had been aimed at traditional desktop computers, hackers are now setting their sights on mobile devices. Operating system consolidation and the massive and growing installed base of powerful mobile devices is tempting profit-motivated hackers to target these devices. In a recent survey of large businesses, we found that nearly 40 percent considered smartphones the device type posing the largest security threat now. Businesses need security tools that provide comprehensive protection: from the core of the network to the diverse range of endpoints that all IT shops are now forced to manage and secure.
Comment from Dan Hoffman, chief mobile security evangelist at Juniper Networks: These findings reflect a perfect storm of users who are either uneducated on or disinterested in security, downloading readily available applications from unknown and unvetted sources in the complete absence of mobile device security solutions. App store processes of reactively removing applications identified as malicious after they have been installed by thousands of users is insufficient as a means to control malware proliferation. There are specifics steps users must take to mitigate mobile attacks. Both enterprises and consumers alike need to be aware of the growing risks associated with the convenience of having the Internet in the palm of your hand.
Recommendations for guarding against growing mobile malware threats for enterprises, government agencies and SMBs:
-- Employ on-device anti-malware to protect against malicious applications, spyware, infected SD cards and malware-based attacks against the mobile device
-- Use SSL VPN clients to effortlessly protect data in transit and ensure appropriate network authentication and access rights
-- Centralize locate and remote lock, wipe, backup and restore facilities for lost and stolen devices
-- Strongly enforce security policies, such as mandating the use of strong PINs/Passcodes
-- Leverage tools to help monitor device activity for data leakage and inappropriate use
-- Centralize mobile device administration to enforce and report on security policies
About the report: "Malicious Mobile Threats Report 2010/2011" was compiled by the Juniper Networks Global Threat Center (GTC) research facility, which conducts around-the-clock security, vulnerability and malware research tailored specifically to mobile device platforms and technologies. The GTC examines increasingly sophisticated attacks from 2010 and 2011, such as, Myournet/Droid Dream, Tap Snake and Geinimi as well as the pirating of the "Walk and Text" application, new threat vectors for mobile cybercrime, and the potential for exploitation and misuse of mobile devices and data.
Contact: http://www.juniper.net
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
C-Level Execs Struggling With Cloud Purchasing Decisions
Organizations are struggling with how to measure Cloud ROI, with more than 60 percent of respondents to a survey saying that their organizations do not currently have an ROI mechanism in place.
Comment from Dr. Chris Harding, Forum Director for The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group: The ability to transform business is the most exciting feature of the Cloud phenomenon. The survey shows that users recognize that Cloud Computing will impact their business processes, but that they are not yet prepared to handle that impact or, in many cases, even to measure it.
About the survey: The Open Group, an international vendor- and technology-neutral consortium, conducted the survey.
Contact: http://opengroup.org
Comment from Dr. Chris Harding, Forum Director for The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group: The ability to transform business is the most exciting feature of the Cloud phenomenon. The survey shows that users recognize that Cloud Computing will impact their business processes, but that they are not yet prepared to handle that impact or, in many cases, even to measure it.
About the survey: The Open Group, an international vendor- and technology-neutral consortium, conducted the survey.
Contact: http://opengroup.org
Friday, May 6, 2011
More Than Two Thirds Of Global Organizations Plan To Adopt Cloud Strategy
Sixty-eight percent of IT professionals say their organizations either have implemented, or plan to implement, a cloud computing strategy within six months, according to a survey.
However, 51 percent do not think their IT service management (ITSM) processes are mature enough to effectively manage cloud-based services, 26 percent think their organizations are ready, while the remaining 23 percent feel unsure.
The survey also revealed that only eight percent of organizations currently use their ITSM tool to manage cloud-based services; 19 percent think their current tool could support management of cloud services, but they have just not started to do so. About one-third (31 percent) of IT professionals indicate that their current ITSM tool would not support the management of cloud-based services; the remaining 42 percent of respondents feel unsure.
Sixty-eight percent have set or implemented plans to adopt cloud computing. A significant number of respondents (28 percent) indicate that their organizations have already adopted a cloud strategy in one or more areas. Regarding future plans for cloud-based services, five percent of respondents have plans to implement cloud services in the next three months. Another 16 percent also have short-term plans to adopt cloud strategies in three-to-six months. With an additional 20 percent of respondents planning to roll out cloud services in six months or beyond, the market shows very clear signs of wide-spread cloud adoption. Only 32 percent percent expressed no current plans to adopt a cloud strategy.
As a report by Gartner last year noted: "Overall, we see the positioning of cloud-driven business and IT services as still emerging. However, the hype and momentum around the use of cloud-computing technologies will drive an accelerated pace and movement of cloud-driven business and IT services through the Hype Cycle milestones at a much faster velocity than other typical items that we normally track. As such, we believe that in less than five years, there will be major shifts and higher adoption ratios."
Comment from Markos Symeonides, Executive Vice President at Axios Systems: ITSM and ITIL (IT infrastructure library) play a critical role in managing cloud services. Many organizations we work with understand IT service supply chains and the need to fully view how their business services are constructed. These organizations must get an end-to-end view for all services, including cloud-based ones. ITSM tools like assystSaaS for ITSM and Service Catalog allow organizations to manage all aspects of IT service provision, including supplier and contract management for cloud computing vendors as well as the traditional ITIL processes like Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Asset and Service Level Management.
About the survey: ITSM provider Axios Systems conducted the survey via poll questions during an April 12, 2011 webcast with attendees from across the globe. The recorded webcast is available here.
Contact: http://www.axiossystems.com
However, 51 percent do not think their IT service management (ITSM) processes are mature enough to effectively manage cloud-based services, 26 percent think their organizations are ready, while the remaining 23 percent feel unsure.
The survey also revealed that only eight percent of organizations currently use their ITSM tool to manage cloud-based services; 19 percent think their current tool could support management of cloud services, but they have just not started to do so. About one-third (31 percent) of IT professionals indicate that their current ITSM tool would not support the management of cloud-based services; the remaining 42 percent of respondents feel unsure.
Sixty-eight percent have set or implemented plans to adopt cloud computing. A significant number of respondents (28 percent) indicate that their organizations have already adopted a cloud strategy in one or more areas. Regarding future plans for cloud-based services, five percent of respondents have plans to implement cloud services in the next three months. Another 16 percent also have short-term plans to adopt cloud strategies in three-to-six months. With an additional 20 percent of respondents planning to roll out cloud services in six months or beyond, the market shows very clear signs of wide-spread cloud adoption. Only 32 percent percent expressed no current plans to adopt a cloud strategy.
As a report by Gartner last year noted: "Overall, we see the positioning of cloud-driven business and IT services as still emerging. However, the hype and momentum around the use of cloud-computing technologies will drive an accelerated pace and movement of cloud-driven business and IT services through the Hype Cycle milestones at a much faster velocity than other typical items that we normally track. As such, we believe that in less than five years, there will be major shifts and higher adoption ratios."
Comment from Markos Symeonides, Executive Vice President at Axios Systems: ITSM and ITIL (IT infrastructure library) play a critical role in managing cloud services. Many organizations we work with understand IT service supply chains and the need to fully view how their business services are constructed. These organizations must get an end-to-end view for all services, including cloud-based ones. ITSM tools like assystSaaS for ITSM and Service Catalog allow organizations to manage all aspects of IT service provision, including supplier and contract management for cloud computing vendors as well as the traditional ITIL processes like Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Asset and Service Level Management.
About the survey: ITSM provider Axios Systems conducted the survey via poll questions during an April 12, 2011 webcast with attendees from across the globe. The recorded webcast is available here.
Contact: http://www.axiossystems.com
Small Business Decision Makers Are Hazy On “Cloud Computing”
Following a traditional path of conservative investment in technology, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been slow to adopt new technologies, such as cloud computing, according to a survey.
Only 10 percent of SMBs have deployed cloud technologies and 72 percent of respondents don't understand or are not familiar with the technology.
Of the businesses currently without cloud computing technologies, only 2 percent plan to deploy cloud-based solutions this year, with an additional 20 percent still weighing the cost and benefits of various solutions.
The survey also found that the IT role within SMBs is evolving to include business development and day-to-day operations responsibilities.
Of the 78 percent who indicated they have in-house support, 79 percent said that the role of IT is involved in other areas of the business, including operations, business development and sales. Of the 22 percent outsourcing support to vendors, 52 percent cited cost as the primary reason.
Comment from said Alex Terry, General Manager of Zoomerang: More often than not, the IT role within a small or midsize business may be fulfilled by the most technology savvy employee, requiring them to juggle multiple responsibilities on top of keeping the company's technology up and running. With limited resources, businesses are looking to every employee to contribute and as a result, the IT role is gradually shifting from one of support to one of support and revenue generation. As to the findings on cloud adoption, these numbers are quite staggering given that cloud vendors are investing huge amounts of money in marketing to showcase the benefits of cloud computing. This research points to the need for cloud vendors to instead educate business owners on what cloud computing means and how it is relevant to SMBs.
About the survey: The survey of more than 500 decision makers was conducted by Zoomerang Online Surveys and Polls. It provides a glimpse of how IT is managed among SMBs and offers a snapshot of cloud computing awareness and adoption.
Contact: Click here to view the report in its entirety.
Contact: http://www.markettools.com
Only 10 percent of SMBs have deployed cloud technologies and 72 percent of respondents don't understand or are not familiar with the technology.
Of the businesses currently without cloud computing technologies, only 2 percent plan to deploy cloud-based solutions this year, with an additional 20 percent still weighing the cost and benefits of various solutions.
The survey also found that the IT role within SMBs is evolving to include business development and day-to-day operations responsibilities.
Of the 78 percent who indicated they have in-house support, 79 percent said that the role of IT is involved in other areas of the business, including operations, business development and sales. Of the 22 percent outsourcing support to vendors, 52 percent cited cost as the primary reason.
Comment from said Alex Terry, General Manager of Zoomerang: More often than not, the IT role within a small or midsize business may be fulfilled by the most technology savvy employee, requiring them to juggle multiple responsibilities on top of keeping the company's technology up and running. With limited resources, businesses are looking to every employee to contribute and as a result, the IT role is gradually shifting from one of support to one of support and revenue generation. As to the findings on cloud adoption, these numbers are quite staggering given that cloud vendors are investing huge amounts of money in marketing to showcase the benefits of cloud computing. This research points to the need for cloud vendors to instead educate business owners on what cloud computing means and how it is relevant to SMBs.
About the survey: The survey of more than 500 decision makers was conducted by Zoomerang Online Surveys and Polls. It provides a glimpse of how IT is managed among SMBs and offers a snapshot of cloud computing awareness and adoption.
Contact: Click here to view the report in its entirety.
Contact: http://www.markettools.com
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