[net-security] CIOs are moving more information into the cloud

Despite continued concerns about security, CIOs and other senior-level IT leaders are moving an increasing percentage of their organizational information into the cloud and are making growing use of private cloud and SaaS delivery models.




An online survey, conducted throughout 2013 by Unisys and IDG Research, asked CIOs and other IT executives about their current and future IT spending priorities. More than 350 senior IT managers in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific responded to the survey. The organizations included both businesses and government agencies.

More than 70 percent of the respondents cited security concerns as their biggest hurdle in deploying cloud-based strategies at their organizations. The respondents also cited concerns about information governance (45 percent of respondents) and the ability to meet enterprise standards (42 percent) as top challenges for cloud deployments.

Despite these hurdles, more than 50 percent of senior-level IT leaders at organizations with more than 1,000 employees indicated that they have at least one application or a portion of their organization's IT infrastructure in the cloud. These executives also reported that about 26 percent of their enterprise information currently resides in a private cloud environment and that they expect that percentage to grow to about 32 percent in the next 18 months.

More than 50 percent (53 percent) of senior-level IT leaders at 1,000-plus employee organizations said they expect to increase spending on SaaS and cloud-based applications over the next 12 months. Forty-four percent of the respondents said they were actively researching or piloting new cloud or SaaS applications.

The senior IT leaders reported that they are primarily focused on reducing costs and managing their IT infrastructure more efficiently, followed by enabling innovation in their business processes. 

Survey respondents said that speed of deployment, increased flexibility, and enabling business continuity were their primary drivers for using cloud-based resources.

"Security concerns are not stopping CIOs from making use of the cloud to reduce costs and increase their organizational agility," said Colin Lacey, vice president, data center and cloud transformation solutions and services, Unisys. "These results show that senior IT leaders are taking a pragmatic, measured approach to cloud adoption, making use of secure private cloud and as-a-service delivery models to ensure secure, consistent delivery of IT services to their employees and customers."
http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=16603