Nearly a half of the companies is not ready to work in "cloud"

The Symantec corporation published results of the research State of Cloud Survey for 2011. According to results, the company give an ambiguous assessment to questions of information system protection in a cloud. The overview also shows that not all organizations are ready to pass to cloud computing: nearly a half of respondents answered that the IT personnel of their companies are not ready yet.

Francis de Souza, the president of group of corporate products and Symantec services, noted that survey results correspond to information which the company obtains from customers. "When it comes about transition to clouds, a security issue is one of the main, - he told. - To be sure of security of a cloud environment, the IT organizations should take the measures guaranteeing the uniform level of transparency and control of the commercial information and applications irrespective of whether there is a processing in a cloud environment or local infrastructure".

Answering questions of security, the companies select data protection as a main goal and at the same time main difficulty upon transition to cloud computing. 87% of respondents are sure that use of cloud computing will not affect or will even be able to improve degree of protection. However creation of security systems in a cloud environment also is a serious problem for the companies which noted mail viruses, the hacker attacks and losses of confidential information as the main risks.

"In a cloud environment everything depends on how you protect the data, - the director of information technology of the small technology company noted. - If in a cloud environment there are no means of protecting, then there is no sense also to resort to cloud computing".

Nearly a half of the polled heads noted that today the IT service of the company is not ready to changes which will be caused by transition to a cloud. Many organizations declare the unavailability to use cloud computing. A small part of respondents (from 15% to 18%) announced readiness of personnel for transition to cloud computing.

According to analysts, the lack of experience as only 25% of IT departments worked with a cloud environment is among restraining factors. At the same time most the organizations are ready to use external resources for the solution of these questions today. Implementing hybrid infrastructure or PaaS service, about three quarters of respondents address official resellers, independent consultants, service organizations of vendors or system integrators.

Nevertheless, some companies finished transition to a cloud environment fully. Less than 20% which participated in poll announced completion of implementation of cloud computing in all aspects affected in the overview of Symantec. About a quarter of the companies are at a stage of implementation today, about 60% still discuss use of technologies, test trial versions or are not going to pass into "cloud" at all.

Poll revealed mismatch of expectations of the organizations applying cloud computing, to the received results/advantages: 88% from them assumed improvement of adaptivity of the IT environment using cloud computing, but it was succeeded to implement only 47%. Unfavourable results are received in questions of implementation of plans of recovery after failures, decrease in operating costs and increased security.

Poll of Symantec State of Cloud 2011 is focused on different forms of cloud computing, including public and private clouds of SaaS, hybrid infrastructure or PaaS, as well as public or private infrastructure of PaaS. Results are received according to the results of the questioning which is carried out from April to July, 2011 by Applied Research company. The research covered 5,300 respondents from 38 countries: The IT specialists and heads responsible for the PC, networks and technologies in corporations and SMB.