The research, which polled 250 senior IT and business decision-makers from both the public and private sectors in the UK, found that security and data privacy continue to rank highly in the minds of end users. When asked about their biggest concerns during the decision-making process to move to the Cloud, 70 per cent cited data security and 61 per cent data privacy in this research, both up from the 2014 figures of 61 per cent and 54 per cent respectively. There has been an even more marked increase in those worried about losing control/manageability of their IT systems; in 2014, just 24 per cent cited this as a concern, compared with 40 per cent today.
Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, said: “As stated previously, Hybrid will be the modus operandi for the majority of organisations for the foreseeable future, being either not yet ready to move everything to the Cloud, or unwilling to. There are a number of contributing factors here: fear of losing control of IT systems, security and privacy concerns, and lack of budget currently stand in the way of greater adoption of Cloud by businesses.
“The primary issue relates to trust: trust that Cloud-based data will be appropriately secured, that it won’t be compromised or inadvertently accessed, and that businesses will be able to retrieve and migrate their data when a contract terminates. To accelerate the confidence of Cloud services, providers should offer this reassurance, through appropriate certification or codes of conduct, such as the CIF Code of Practice.” Hilton continued.
Richard Pharro, CEO of APM Group, CIF’s independent certification partner, added: “Unfortunately, some Cloud providers are opaque in the way that they operate. The prevalence of click-through licenses, some of which are littered with unrealistic terms and conditions drives home the necessity of the Cloud Industry Forum’s Code of Practice. CSPs that have certified against the Code are required to operate in an open, straightforward and transparent way that has been vetted by CIF. The public disclosure requirement ensures that all key information about services, organisational set-up and contracts is readily available, which, in turn, helps to establish the trust necessary to enter into Cloud service arrangements.”