Survey Provides Insight into Enterprise Cloud Plans

Cloud has caught on, according to a new survey, but most enterprises are taking it slow. A new report from Gatepoint Research and commissioned by ScienceLogic found that although 79 percent of 100 executives (most from large enterprises) responding to its survey are running some part of their production applications in the cloud, 64 percent of all respondents are running no more than a quarter of them with that technology.

When moving to the cloud, however, IT isn't comfortable turning over complete responsibility to the service provider. Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) say they will turn the training their existing IT operations staff in cloud management, and 65 percent say they'll be using on-premises tools to monitor performance. Nearly as many (64 percent) say they will probably need new management tools; a third unsure what their needs will be.

Cloud technology does hold promise. Over half of the respondents expect that the technology will enable collaboration, and most expect the technology to help them reduce IT costs, remove silos, and lower the number of performance issues as they move to the cloud. However, for most, enterprises “are uncertain about the role of IT Operations as assets move to the cloud.”

I asked ScienceLogic’s CEO, Dave Link, what conclusions he drew from the survey.

“The survey data tell us that enterprises are clearly moving to cloud computing in significant numbers and support analyst predictions that there’s a great deal of growth yet to come in the cloud-computing market,” Link said. “Although IT operations will continue to change with new technologies, there’s no doubt that operations is every enterprise’s vital link to managing essential business infrastructure -- whatever form it takes.”

-- James E. Powell
Editorial Director, ESJ

Posted by Jim Powell on 07/15/2011