Take the lead in embracing cloud computing

By SMBWorld Asia Editors | Nov 23, 2011

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Symantec Corp. has announced the results of its 2011 State of Cloud Survey on Asia South, which examine how organizations are adopting cloud computing and dealing with the changes it can impose on their approach to managing IT.

According to the survey, organizations have mixed feelings when it comes to security – with a majority ranking it as both a top concern and top goal of moving to the cloud.  The survey also revealed that IT organizations may not be adequately prepared for the move to the cloud, as more than half of the respondents said their IT staffs are not ready at this time.

The study is based on 5,300 responses in 38 countries globally, of which 1,100 responses came from Asia South countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and India.

“Most organizations in Asia South generally believe that moving to the cloud will provide important business benefits and improve their security posture. But they are also concerned that cloud services bring their own risks such as malware attacks and data breach from unauthorized use of cloud-based systems,” said Anil Chakravarthy, senior vice president, Storage and Availability Management Group, Symantec.

“To ensure success, IT departments need to carefully select the applications that move to the cloud; closely monitor the security, availability, and cost of cloud services; and ensure that their staff has received the proper training and preparation.”

Organizations Torn Over Security
According to the survey, organizations are conflicted about security – rating it both as a top goal and as a top concern with moving to the cloud.

Eighty-four percent of respondents are confident that moving to the cloud will not impact or will actually improve their security. However, achieving security for cloud environments is also a top concern for these organizations, which cited potential risks including malware, data breach from unauthorized use of cloud-based systems, sharing sensitive data insecurely, hacker-based theft, and loss of confidential data.

“With the cloud, everything depends on how you secure your data,” said the CTO of a small technology company.  “If there’s no security, there’s no point in moving to the cloud.”