Survey Finds Cloud Security Lacking

Interest in cloud computing is strong among IT professionals, but that interest is coupled with an equally strong fear about the security implications, according to a new survey.

Key findings in PhoneFactor's study include:

--  Security is a primary barrier to cloud computing adoption for nearly three-quarters of respondents (73 percent) followed by Compliance (54 percent) and Portability/Ownership of Data (48 percent).

--  42 percent of respondents indicated that security concerns had held their company back from adopting cloud computing. 30 percent were unsure, and only 28 percent indicated it had not been a deterrent.

--  Leading cloud services were rated only moderately secure or worse: Google Apps, Amazon Web Services, and SalesForce/Force.com were all rated only moderately or less secure by more than 74 percent of respondents.

--  Preventing unauthorized access to data was the greatest cloud computing security concern. The overwhelming majority of respondents (93 percent) were at least moderately concerned about preventing unauthorized access to company data in the cloud; more than half (53 percent) were extremely concerned by it. Fear of the unknown ranked second highest with 89 percent of respondents indicating they were at least moderately concerned about the inability to evaluate the security of cloud-based systems.

--  What can be done to increase confidence in cloud computing? The top three security measures respondents thought were critical to securing the cloud included: Encryption (84 percent), Multi-Factor Authentication (81 percent), and Intrusion Prevention (80 percent).

--  Reduced cost (65 percent), Scalability (62 percent), and Rapid Implementation (50 percent) are seen as primary benefits to cloud computing. 87 percent of respondents indicated that they were planning to at least evaluate the use of cloud services.

Google's announcement earlier this week that they are adding two-step authentication to Google Apps validates the need for additional security for user access to cloud applications. The Google authentication solution, like that provided by PhoneFactor, leverages an everyday device -- the phone, which is ideal for cloud applications because it mirrors the scalability and cost savings touted as key benefits of cloud computing.

Comment from Steve Dispensa, PhoneFactor CTO and co-founder: Companies are eager to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. Demand for cloud computing systems clearly exists. However, survey results indicate that better security, like multi-factor authentication and encryption, are going to be required if cloud computing adoption is going to move forward.

About the survey: A global provider of phone-based multi-factor authentication, PhoneFactor's recent survey on the role of security in cloud computing adoption included more than 300 information technology professionals from a wide variety of industries and looked at their organizations' current and planned use of cloud computing, what perceived benefits are driving adoption, and conversely which factors are limiting adoption.

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Users Find Flexibility And Cost Savings Of Virtualized Systems Are Compelling

Flexibility is the leading driver of virtualization and cloud computing adoption use, while security is the biggest worry, according to a new survey designed identify current trends in virtualization and cloud computing utilization and to collect input for addressing the IT management demands of those users.

VMware and Amazon EC2 have the largest market penetration in virtualization and cloud computing, respectively, the survey found, while there a large number of organizations are deploying applications on Xen, KVM, Rackspace Cloud and Google App Engine.

Additional findings in the 2010 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Survey include:

•  40.7% indicated that they preferred to deploy servers virtually, 29.3% indicated they used virtualization whenever possible.
• 43.3% of participants indicated flexibility as the reason for using virtualization while 33.3% indicated hardware savings as a reason for using the technology.
• The number one stated goal with regards to virtual infrastructure was Cost Savings (64.7%) followed by Deployment Control specifically controlling virtual sprawl.
• 70.7% preferred tools that managed all infrastructure rather than point solutions that were virtualization specific.
• The vast number of virtualization users don't utilize automation. In managing virtual environments only 39.3% of virtualization automate the starting and stopping of virtual machines based on operational conditions.
• 73.3% have not made a decision on their virtualization management solution.
• 25.8% indicated they would be deploying hosted data services.
• 50.8% indicated they used no specific management tools for cloud computing and 33.3% indicated using tools provided by their hosting provider.
• Security was the number one concern for cloud computing followed by management and monitoring.

Comment from Mark Hinkle, VP of Community at Zenoss: Cloud and virtualization technologies are impacting IT architecture in an unprecedented way, and while the technologies develop it's equally important to provide complementary tools that provide visibility and management capabilities for the modern datacenter. This survey provides data on real enterprise usage trends so we can develop software that helps users fully understand and manage their virtual infrastructure.

Zenoss Inc., a provider of dynamic service assurance products for public, private and hybrid clouds and corporate sponsor of Zenoss Core, sponsored the 2010 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Survey of more than 200 organizations.

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