Security Not A Top Motivator In Moving To The Cloud

In the UK, companies contemplating moving to the cloud are doing so mainly because of the cost benefits associated with cloud computing, not security benefits.

Another popular reason, cited by half of respondents to a Rackspace survey on cloud migration, was increased disaster recovery capabilities.

But security as a driver for cloud migration was only the third most popular amongst the 500 UK IT decision makers quizzed.

Loss of control

“Cloud has long been associated with a loss of control over information,” said Rackspace CSO Brian Kelly.

Yet Rackspace wants potential cloud customers to know that the cloud can indeed be safe, and it certainly should be a major driver for cloud migration. Kelly called the links between cloud and lack of security as a “misconception”.

“Organisations are increasingly seeing the cloud as a means to keeping their systems and information safe and in the year ahead security will be an accelerator, not an inhibitor, of cloud adoption.”

Of respondents surveyed, meeting security and privacy requirements remained the biggest apprehension for those organisations which have moved to the cloud. Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) cited this as a concern, above loss of control to a third party provider (39 percent), cost of a migration (39 percent), application performance and availability (36 percent) and having the in-house skills (27 percent).

Kelly said: “Many businesses do not have the expertise or budgets to combat a growing number of sophisticated cyber-attacks in-house, but using the cloud – with the support of a team which is able to dedicate a large number of resources to security – will help to keep data safe at a fraction of the cost.”

Security was the third highest motivation for moving to the cloud amongst those surveyed (38 percent), behind reducing IT costs (61 percent) and increasing resilience or disaster recovery capabilities (50 percent).

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