CSA cloud metrics validate perceptions on cloud computing risk
November 9, 2012
Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Diana Kelly.
On Sept. 27, 2012, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and ISACA (formerly the Information Systems Audit and Control Association) released their Cloud Computing Market Maturity study. It offers an important review of the state of cloud computing services, and specifically how information security is affecting cloud computing adoption. Cloud services swept into markets a few years ago promising fast ramp-ups and low prices, but little in the way of security. This isn’t uncommon in the cloud industry: Despite security professionals’ pleas for organizations to build security in, it’s still a reality that excellent business benefits (for example, in the case of wireless networking) trump security — at least during the heady days of early roll-outs. With maturity comes security, but how mature is the cloud market? And what does that mean for those of us who have to manage our data in the cloud?
The joint CSA/ISACA survey addresses the maturity question. Though fairly small in sample size (a total of 252 responses) the distribution of the sample is impressive. The results include responses from managers and organizations from around the globe, and both large and small size organizations responded. One fact to note: 173 of respondents identified themselves "… as a cloud service provider, integrator or consultant …," indicating that the respondents were already at a fairly high level of maturity because of their involvement as providers of (or consultants on) cloud services…
Software service offerings, like application service providers (ASPs), have been available since before the advent of cloud. Therefore, it is not surprising that this category scored the highest adoption rate — 62.3%. SaaS (Software as a Service) was followed by IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) with a 35.7% adoption rate, and PaaS (Platform as a Service) with 22.6%…
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