Security concerns waning in the Cloud, finds Cisco

Now here's a thing. Remember that old frequently aired chestnut about how security fears are holding back the adoption of Cloud Computing?

Well according to a new study from Cisco - Cloud Watch - at least one in four ICT decision makers reckon that the Cloud offers higher levels of security than in-house ICT or outsourcing.

The study - which quizzed 250 UK IT decision makers across government, retail, healthcare, finance and service providers - found that just over half (56%) of businesses believe responsibility for Cloud security should be shared between end user organisations, Cloud service providers and application providers. Cloud is on the IT agenda for just over half of all companies (52%) but is only considered critical by 7% of them.

For those who do have Cloud on the agenda, 74% are planning to invest in the next 12 months with the most used Cloud services currently being web conferencing, video-conferencing and unified communications (72%, 71% and 68% respectively).

Ian Foddering, CTO of Cisco for UK and Ireland, said:

“There are still problems around the perception of Cloud services, and these include security and governance. But these issues are being addressed. The ITU and other bodies are developing standards and adequate governance will address the remaining security concerns.”

With the government's Cloud Computing national strategy still lurking in the wings, it's interesting to note that applications within central government said to be of most interest as Cloud-ready are payroll and Web conferencing. Rod Halstead, managing director of Cisco’s UK public sector business arm, commented:

“Though awareness is high, it looks like only a very small proportion of CIOs are actually taking Cloud actions...I think the way to understand all this is that it’s still very early days for the Cloud but that the momentum is good and that adoption is likely to climb quickly. But it also says the public sector in particular is waiting for clearer guidance in this area than it’s been getting – so a clear G-Cloud direction-setting could really be helpful here.”

But he added that there might be more Cloud out there than is immediately obvious, saying:

“It has to be borne in mind that there are differences in approach to Cloud in local, central and healthcare. All have a slightly different view and I’d argue that in local you already see a lot of ‘Cloud-like’ capability – only it’s being called shared services, and so on.”

The full Cloud Watch report can be found here.