Survey Finds that Cloud’s Future Burns Bright as Corporate Confidence Grows

Grazed from Integration Developer News. Author: Vance McCarthy.

A survey finds the future of cloud is bright, as firms become more trusting in cloud solutions to run business-critical operations. The Future of Cloud Computing Survey, released by North Bridge Venture Partners asked 785 industry experts, vendors and end users about drivers inhibitors and best practices for cloud computing.

More than half of those surveyed expressed confidence in the viability of cloud solutions for critical business apps. Some 57% said scalability would be critical to cloud success.

Among those who feel confident about clouds, SaaS (software-as-a-service) looks to be a big reason, according to the survey. In fact, SaaS remains the Number One cloud investment, with 82% of respondents noting that this cloud expense was their top budget item. SaaS also has proven its merit to IT and business users, as a whopping 88% said they still planned to use SaaS five years from now, according to the survey…

 Telstra pitches its local secure data centres as a solution for those concerns. However, for some observers, it is only a matter of time before something, somewhere, goes wrong and the industry faces some rigorous legal tests.

"Something is going to happen," predicts Douglas Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM’s collaboration solutions division in New York.

"It is going to end up in court or it is going to be out in public and we are going to have to get serious about security and making sure that those things aren’t leaking when they shouldn’t be and intellectual property is handled appropriately."

If that’s not enough to be concerned by, Heintzman believes it’s not only in securing private data where trust comes under threat 21590_04 the veracity of public data must also be trusted.

Apple’s Siri potentially getting an obscure sports result incorrect or a doctor cloud-sourcing an inaccurate cancer diagnosis are two opposite examples of Іntial misinformation that underline how important trusting data must become.

"So many of us are getting so much of our information from little bits and pieces," says Heintzman. "I read something on a blog and suddenly it’s news. Just because it is on the internet doesn’t mean that it is true.

"Along with privacy and security, I think we need to introduce the concept of [data] trustworthiness as one of the major pillars of the nature of content and how it needs to be secured."

“While agility and scalability continue to be primary drivers for cloud adoption, IT decision makers are beginning to trust the cloud with more mission-critical applications like eCommerce,” said Michael Skok, partner, North Bridge Venture Partners, in a statement.

Key findings of the survey include:

• Platform-as-a -service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will grow significantly within the next five years; PaaS will increase from 405 to 725 and IaaS will grow from 51% to 66%.
• The top 3 areas in which “cloud formations” are coming together are backup and archiving (43 percent), business continuity (25 percent), collaboration tools (22 percent), and big data processing (19 percent).
• Attitudes are changing toward hybrid clouds (private-public clouds). At present, 40 % of respondents’ are deploying public cloud strategies, while 36% are emphasizing a hybrid approach. However, 52% will deploy hybrid cloud strategies within five years.

The survey also looked into the future for the next wave of adoption trends. On that point, Big Data and analytics Skok noted.

“With an increase in trust of the cloud, big data is emerging as a major focus for vendors and end-users alike,” the survey noted. In specific, 80% of respondents identified big data as the “most likely” sector to be disrupted by cloud computing. Vendors also ranked analytics and big data at the top of the next set of cloud adoption trends.

The survey mirrors findings by The 451 Group and GigaOM. An analyst with 451 Group noted the Future of Cloud Computing survey also shows as confidence in cloud architectures grow, so will the willingness to explore bolder and more imaginative cloud solutions.

“It appears that there is growing familiarity and trust of public cloud accompanied by a desire to move beyond one’s own internal infrastructure, cloud or not. The move away from internally-hosted to public and hybrid clouds reflects the need and desire to integrate with other technologies, vendors and ecosystems,” Jay Lyman, Senior Analyst, 451 Group said in a statement.

To deliver on cloud’s bright future, vendors still have some work to do, however, according to the survey. More than half of respondents (55%) said security was still the biggest impediment to firms decisions to adopt clouds solutions

North Bridge Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, Massachusetts and San Mateo, California. North Bridge adds value by providing strategic guidance, sharing operating experience, industry specific knowledge, team-building skills and expertise in private and public financings. North Bridge investments focus on software, communications, infrastructure and other sectors.