Cloud Adoption Increases Steadily, According to Reports
March 12, 2013 Alex Woodie
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Nearly 40 percent of organizations are running or implementing cloud solutions, according to the results of a survey by IT reseller CDW. Meanwhile, another survey by security firm SilverSky found that organizations have moved 25 percent of their business functions to the cloud. In its 2013 State of the Cloud Report, CDW found that 39 percent of organizations are implementing or maintaining cloud solutions. That’s an 11 percent increase from 2011. The survey, which involved 1,242 IT professionals in the United States, also found that more than half of organizations are migrating or planning to migrate specific applications or infrastructure to the cloud. The move to the cloud is being driven in large part by employees and the way they access cloud apps through mobile devices, CDW found. Two-thirds of the IT professionals surveyed said that their use of cloud applications and services in their non-work lives directly influences their cloud-related recommendations at work. “Organizations’ adoption of cloud computing has steadily increased, which comes as no surprise given the growth of mobility and the consumerization of IT,” states CDW’s general manager of cloud solutions Stephen Braat. SilverSky’s survey of 200 CIOs and senior level IT decision makers in the US found similar cloud trends. On average, the firm’s “Silver Lining Report” found that respondents have moved an average 25 percent of their business functions to the cloud, with ecommerce at 41 percent being the most popular, followed by email at 39 percent, and storage at 30 percent. Middleware is also finding its way up to the cloud. Showing no upward cloud movement are traditional back-office functions, such as finance, accounting, and procurement applications. Security is still a big concern of prospective cloud adopters, which is why production ERP systems and databases aren’t yet upwardly mobile. The SilverSky survey found that 74 percent of respondents harbor “strong concerns” about privacy and security of the cloud. More executives are skeptical about cloud than those who are enthusiastic about it, the survey found.
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