Pipeline Publishing, Volume 7, Issue 9 - Hurdles to Enterprise Cloud Adoption

Pipeline Publishing, Volume 7, Issue 9

	This Month's Issue:
	The Cloud Beckons

Hurdles to Enterprise Cloud Adoption

By Jesse Cryderman

It is important to separate the marketing buzz from the real-world data to get an accurate picture of cloud computing services. According to the sales pitch, enterprise cloud services offer significant cost savings, eliminate redundant hardware purchases, and support a distributed workforce. But while cloud services have been hailed as the wave of the future, they aren't being adopted quite as fast as some analysts predicted.

To summarize, the Yankee Group recently stated that “service providers should realize that cloud computing’s shift from bleeding-edge to mainstream IT is nowhere near completion.” The obvious question is why aren't more companies doing business in the clouds? What's the hold up?

Security

One of the most often-cited challenges facing C-level technology executives when making purchase decisions is security; how can a company be sure that the data it’s handing off is as secure as it would be in the room next door? This is further complicated by a lack of standardization, and the fact that different jurisdictions and countries have varying levels of assurance, regulatory or otherwise.

Cisco polled over 80 executives across 43 enterprises, and found security to be the most important barrier to cloud migration. Likewise, in a recent Yankee Group survey, security was listed as the highest ranking barrier to cloud adoption by C-level technology executives poised to make enterprise purchasing decisions.

There is a good reason for the concern—cloud computing faces threats on many levels. According to a report by the Cloud Security Alliance, the threats facing cloud computing are:

Abuse and Nefarious Use of Cloud Computing
Insecure Application Programming Interfaces
Malicious Insiders
Shared Technology Vulnerabilities
Data Loss/Leakage
Account, Service & Traffic Hijacking

(To read the entire report click here )

Why aren't more companies doing business in the clouds? What's the hold up?

In fact, something as simple cloud printing could open a network to hacker vulnerability. A recent PC world article revealed that penetrating a network through cloud printers and all-in-one devices is relatively simple.

In addition, there are different types of cloud services: Software as a Service (SaaS, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a service (PaaS). The security, compliance, and data protection protocols for each type of service are not the same, and a general guideline has yet to be standardized.

While the security concern is very real, it’s definitely not insurmountable, says Drew Rockwell, CEO of MDS. “Security management will create significant risk as more enterprise services move into the cloud. This however should not hinder the advance of moving more services into the cloud environment, just a greater degree of foresight.”

Data Migration and Legacy Investment

Next to security, data migration is the second most cited barrier to cloud adoption. The fear is that migrating to a cloud-based platform could be difficult and costly. While cloud services themselves offer considerable savings, the time and cost of a move to the clouds is often times unclear, and for mission-critical network components, time is money.

An adjunct concern is the loss associated with moving from legacy systems that have not completed their lifecycle. For many companies, it’s just too soon to move to the clouds, having recently invested in in-house policy control management programs, for instance.

A global study just released by the IT Governance Institute reveals that “thirty-five percent of C-level executives cite a significant investment in legacy infrastructure as the reason they are not adopting cloud computing.”

Lock-In

Closely related to the hurdles of data migration is the fear of lock-in, or more appropriately how a move to the clouds will affect the portability of future solutions. Again, this is compounded by a lack of standardization; unlike desktop native applications that run the same office suite, in the clouds there are many solutions that are all essentially proprietary.

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