Concerns and Knowledge Regarding Cloud Adoption

The cloud computing phenomenon that has experienced lift-off in recent years continues to boom and all signs point to the idea that it will certainly continue growing exponentially. However, despite this, it would seem that there is still a substantial lack of awareness and understanding regarding cloud hosting services.

A recent survey that was carried out by ‘blueocean’, a market intelligence firm, has revealed that consumer awareness and knowledge of cloud hosting services is still rather minimal with corporations remaining the most likely to adopt cloud computing. On an individual level, cloud hosting services are still not being widely utilised despite their benefits.

The CEO of ‘blueocean’, Dr Kumar Mehta, has been commenting on the survey they carried out, saying the following: “We were surprised to know that although adoption levels of cloud computing services, such as email, social networking and internet telephony is over 80% today, most users do not see these as cloud computing services. Awareness levels of the term ‘cloud computing’ were lower than expected at around 60% in the United States and Germany, and only 40% in India. Based on our comprehensive study covering individuals from India, America and Germany, we were able to identify three concerns which included security, privacy and ease of use.”

The fact that the survey revealed that cloud security and privacy remains as the number one concern for corporations is of little surprise since a huge amount of confidential data will potentially be stored on the cloud.

Interestingly, the survey revealed that security concerns were twice as high in the United States and Germany as they were in India whilst the findings also further illustrate the need for vendors to be as transparent as they possibly can when it comes to the security of their cloud service.

The findings of the survey also show a necessity for cloud hosting providers to increase awareness of their services and perhaps simplify technical jargon in order to make it easier for decision makers that may not have a substantial technical knowledge to understand exactly what cloud hosting is.

Meanwhile, the UK market faces exactly the same challenges with security and privacy having been a key topic of discussion at numerous cloud computing events that have taken place so far this year, such as the Cloud Computing World Forum that kicked off at Earls Court, London, in June. In addition to security as an agenda item, the idea that cloud providers are leading the way in eradicating cybercrime was also a hot topic, which thus adds to the idea that cloud security is certainly strengthening.

With around 65% of SMBs having previously stated that cloud computing is essential to the future of their organization and growth plans, there is a clear scope to develop the general understanding of cloud computing, not just in the US, but across the globe too.

Would you agree that cloud security and privacy is the number one concern when choosing a cloud vendor?

This is a guest post from Virtual Internet.

Photo source: https://www.sxc.hu/photo/335343