Interxion Cloud Survey: European IT decision-makers and influencers give their views on cloud computing
Cloud is a hot topic for many of today's business and technology leaders. But for all the hype, how many companies are actually using cloud services, or have concrete plans to do so? And if cloud really is a priority, what's driving companies' investment in cloud-based services? Are they looking at cloud to help them meet short-term goals or considering cloud delivery as a long-term solution?
Interxion has carried out a Europe-wide survey of current and intended cloud usage and attitudes towards cloud computing that explores all these questions. The survey results will help service providers and systems integrators gain a better understanding of organisations' objectives and concerns around cloud computing, identify the opportunities they present, and differentiate themselves in what is becoming an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Who's using cloud today?
Cloud computing is considered a priority by executive teams in 69% of the organisations we surveyed. Among large companies, the percentage is slightly higher (71%) than for medium (67%) and small companies (68%).
However, it's actually small companies that are leading the way in terms of cloud usage. Overall, 76% of respondents said their companies were using cloud services or planned to do so within the next 24 months — with 78% of small companies already using or planning to use cloud, compared with 73% of both large and medium-size companies.
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What's driving investment in cloud computing?
Reducing the cost of infrastructure and flexibility were the top two reasons for investing in cloud (67% and 54% of respondents respectively). Both drivers reflect the current economic climate and the fact that most IT departments are currently focused on meeting short-term goals. So there's scope to convince organisations of the long-term benefits that cloud can bring to a company.
Almost 40% of small and medium-size companies rated business continuity and disaster recovery (BC&DR) as a top-three driver, compared with just 15% of large companies — reflecting the fact that it's harder for smaller organisations to provide that capability in house.
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What are the barriers to cloud computing?
The top issue overall was a perceived lack of security and service level agreements (SLAs), with 45% of respondents referring to it. Lock-in to a specific infrastructure vendor was revealed to be the second biggest barrier (cited by 40% of respondents) — and a bigger issue for small companies than concerns about security and SLAs.
Regulatory concerns were ranked number three, with 39%. Service providers need to ensure their infrastructure is designed and segmented in such a way that they can provide reassurance that data is stored in a geographical location that meets customers' requirements.
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Security concerns related to cloud computing
Preventing data loss was stated as the main security concern overall, with 71% of respondents identifying it as one of their top three security concerns. However, preventing outages, rated second with 64%, was cited most often as the top issue, bearing out the fundamental role that ICT plays in business processes today.
Large companies were much more concerned about keeping security up to date (69%) and meeting regulatory requirements (67%) than small and medium-sized companies. To help reduce security concerns overall, cloud providers need to clearly communicate their practices for maintaining a secure cloud.
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Commonly used cloud applications
Websites, backup and recovery, email and calendars were rated as the most commonly used cloud applications. The high ranking (fourth) position for testing and development is explained by the way in which cloud delivery simplifies setup and dismantling of test and development environments.
here's plenty of growth potential for backup and recovery, document management and customer relationship management (CRM) as cloud applications. However, perceived concerns about data security and regulatory compliance mean that most organisations don't currently have firm plans to move applications like billing and HR management to the cloud.
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Cloud tomorrow
Almost half (47%) of the survey respondents expect that over 50% of their IT will be delivered from the cloud within the next 24 months, with 23% saying that over 75% of their IT will be in the cloud. Private or hybrid clouds were preferred by the majority (78%).
Fully 90% of those planning to deploy a private cloud said they are likely or very likely to choose a hosted solution rather than buying their own hardware. We therefore expect that service providers, value added resellers and systems integrators will increasingly form partnerships to meet market demand for private cloud services.
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