UPDATED 21:37 EDT / MAY 23 2017

CLOUD

In a reversal, security is now driving enterprise cloud adoption

For a long time, security was the Achilles Heel of the cloud, preventing many companies from making the leap. Now, in a stark reversal, many enterprises are embracing the cloud precisely because of its security benefits.

That’s according to a new survey of 401 information technology professionals by Insight. The technology services provider’s Intelligent Technology Index survey found that software as a service (57 percent) and security as a service (51 percent) ranked as the two leading cloud computing models adopted by enterprises, with infrastructure as a service (39 percent) and disaster recovery as a service (34 percent) also proving popular. Another trend identified in the survey is the Internet of Things, with almost half of respondents reporting they’re embedding IoT into their tech strategies to boost consumer engagement.

Asked which areas they’d like to see their information technology budgets grow, some 55 percent of respondents pointed to security, with 44 percent pointing to the cloud. Almost two-thirds of respondents indicated that data security was paramount when it comes to investing in the cloud, which suggests that questions around safety are some of the most pertinent when it comes to choosing a cloud provider, Insight said.

Still, many organizations admit that cloud adoption can be quite messy. Just over 30 percent of respondents said they had concerns around data availability in the cloud, while a third worried about the disruption cloud adoption could cause.

Those concerns have largely been put to one side, however. Eighty-four percent of respondents said their organizations had invested in cloud services over the past year, with a hybrid cloud strategy being the most popular. Just 15 percent of IT pros said they’d fully migrated corporate application workloads to public clouds, with 47 percent saying they were “more than halfway” through the process, led by medium and larger companies.

“While an on-premise strategy makes sense for many business workloads, cloud computing continues to gain market share. Cloud-based infrastructure allows companies to be extremely nimble and lean, shifting the bulk of operational responsibility to the service provider,” Mike Gaumond, Insight’s senior vice president of services, said in a statement. “However, some companies employ workloads and applications that work better in an on-premise environment, which is why the hybrid cloud model is gaining traction and providing organizations with an integrated approach.”

Companies are enjoying some big benefits of that move to the cloud. The survey shows that 61 percent cite a more flexible and collaborative IT environment as the top benefit, while 59 percent said cloud provided a safer data environment. Other benefits include better remote access (55 percent), improved support from providers (48 percent) and faster speed to market (36 percent).

Overall, Insight’s survey found that IT professionals today gave their current IT infrastructure an average grade of “B,” which is up from the average “B minus” they voted for on average in 2016. But while most are quite satisfied with their infrastructures, challenges around optimization continue to dog many organizations. The upgrade of existing hardware and software was identified as the biggest challenge by 53 percent of companies, followed by application integration (38 percent), mobile device integration (34 percent) and getting better visibility into traffic patterns and data management (32 percent).

“IT leaders may be showing improved optimism around their ability to manage their IT infrastructures today, but are also equally as apprehensive about the future,” said Steve Dodenhoff, president of Insight U.S. “They not only need to operate to meet today’s business needs, but they also need to navigate emergent technologies, applications and complex data environments in order to provide a rich and flexible technology ecosystem that enables their organizations to keep pace and drive transformation.”

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