SilverSky's Independent Study Reveals Dramatic Surge in Cloud Confidence and Adoption, but Cloud Security Concerns Continue to Dominate

One quarter of all business functions currently in the cloud; security and privacy concerns underscore critical need for vendor transparency, clarity and assurance

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SilverSky

Feb 20, 2013, 09:00 ET

MILFORD, Conn., Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today revealed findings of an independently commissioned study which examines key drivers of – and barriers to – cloud adoption. The study reveals that as a whole, companies are much more confident in the cloud than they were 12 months ago, yet security and privacy concerns continue to hold many back from widespread adoption.

Two hundred U.S. chief information officers and senior level security decision-makers were surveyed in the company's new "Silver Lining Report." Nearly all (97 percent) of survey respondents indicate their confidence level in the cloud has either increased or stayed the same in the past 12 months. On average, respondents have moved one-quarter of all their business functions and services to the cloud, the most popular being e-Commerce (41 percent), closely followed by email (39 percent) and storage (30 percent). Many respondents have plans to migrate additional applications within the next 12 months, particularly storage and e-Commerce (both 16 percent) and middleware/infrastructure (14 percent). However, traditional back-office functions such as finance and accounting and procurement applications show no upward movement.

Surveyed executives want to move more functions and services to the cloud because they expect it will reduce expenditures (67 percent), simplify operations (66 percent) and increase the reliability of business functions (56 percent). However, 74 percent of respondents harbor strong concerns around privacy and security, and for some, these concerns outweigh benefit expectations. Although the percentage of executives that are enthusiastic about cloud services is fairly high (28 percent), they are outnumbered by the skeptics (39 percent).

Though cost is noted as the number one driver for cloud adoption, 38 percent of respondents indicate that cost is also an inhibitor. Additionally, one out of every two executives surveyed are currently unsure whether cloud-based services will cut internal support costs, or add to them. However, based on migration trends revealed in this study, SilverSky expects 2013 to represent a tipping point for assessing the financial benefits of cloud adoption.

When it comes to cloud vendor evaluation, survey data shows that influencers sway short lists, especially recommendations from analysts (52 percent) and colleagues (64 percent); but ultimately, personal research trumps all at 76 percent. Vendor commitment is also critical in the evaluation process. Once organizations decide to migrate to the cloud, they look at three primary determining factors when evaluating potential cloud partners: assurance that the vendor can commit to stringent service level agreement (SLA) guidelines (43 percent), assurance that the vendor can migrate their employees efficiently (41 percent) and assurance that third parties can vouch for the provider's security (39 percent).

"Moving to the cloud should be career-defining, not career-limiting," said Andrew Jaquith, CTO, SilverSky. "When CIOs and security decision-makers move their critical workloads to the cloud, they seek providers that cut their costs, simplify their architectures and protect their data. But equally important, they are making a leap of faith by entrusting services they can't do without to someone they don't know. The data in the Silver Lining Report show us why transparency, clarity and assurance are so essential."

To download the entire report and infographic, please visit here.

Methodology
SilverSky's "Silver Lining Report" is based on an online, quantitative market research study commissioned by SilverSky and conducted by independent research firm ResearchNow in late 2012. Respondents included 200 CIOs and senior-level security decision-makers (171 chief information officers and 29 chief technology officers) at U.S. organizations. Respondents came from 17 verticals, with 62 percent from four industries: manufacturing, professional services, information services and financial services. Most respondents were enterprise (36 percent) and midsize (39 percent) IT decision-makers.

About the Cloud Security Provider, SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

SOURCE SilverSky