Security, Privacy Still Impede Cloud Adoption: Research

James Staten, Forrester’s principal analyst once wrote, “If you’re resisting the cloud because of security concerns, you’re running out of excuses.” And he was spot-on.

In the last one year, cloud has certainly become the rule for many enterprises. The public cloud, especially, has become a standard choice for organizations to meet their growing business requirements. An option that was once considered to be a security hazard by CIOs slowly became a desired choice, or, so we thought.

For those who concluded that the days of security and privacy concerns around cloud are long gone, here is a wake-up call. Security still seems to be the top concern, not just for the IT leaders, but also for CXOs and LoB managers. A recent study by a market research and advisory firm Current Analysis highlights security and privacy as the biggest concerns for enterprises when moving their data to cloud.

As much as 62 percent of the survey respondents cited security as the biggest concern when moving a workload to cloud, while 42 percent believe privacy is the prime concern.

Though the study shows that cloud is the top investment priority for Indian enterprises, security and privacy concerns still remain the biggest inhibitors.

“Public cloud is picking up globally. In more advanced markets, it has picked up a bit more than the emerging markets. The level of maturity is more in those markets. But the notion that people are not concerned about security and privacy is not true. They are concerned. Critical workloads may not really move to public cloud now. Security is the prime reason for that,” says Harish N. Taori, director for Research and Consulting at Current Analysis, Asia Pacific.

He says that India is fast emerging as a high-growth market for cloud services, led thus far by the private cloud segment and the reason why public cloud isn’t in the pole position yet is security. “Security is actually one of the—if not the only—reason why private cloud has been a preferred option for organizations in India.”

There is however a gradual change, thanks to the growing maturity in the models of leading cloud providers. “The public cloud providers are proving their level of security. They are able to provide better credentials about their security capabilities. So the supply side of the public cloud is getting stronger to address some of the concerns that enterprises have in order to move their data on the cloud,” Taori says.  But Taori believes that it is only a matter of time before some of the myths around public cloud are busted.