Survey shows shift to cloud-based services despite concerns

A survey of 5,300 IT and security managers in 38 countries about cloud computing offers a vivid snapshot of expectations, anxieties, and sometimes shattered hopes.

According to the Symantec "State of the Cloud" survey, 19 percent of the respondents said they had moved at least some applications to public software as a service, while 17 percent said they had adopted a private cloud arrangement. When it comes to public infrastructure as a service, 17 percent were using that, while 11 percent said they were using a hybrid arrangement linking private and public cloud services.

In addition, roughly a quarter of the respondents said they were in the middle of implementations based on these four defined categories of private and public cloud use. But about another quarter were not even considering it, with security, reliability, and performance concerns paramount. Read more...