Arthur Goldstuck

While 46 out of 100 JSE-listed local corporations have adopted some form of cloud computing, security and lack of awareness are the biggest inhibitors to moving infrastructure or data to the cloud.

This is according to the IP Expo Corporate Cloud Survey 2011, a new report by World Wide Worx commissioned for the IP Expo technology trade show.

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck said: “While companies are starting to embrace the technology, there is definitely no herd mentality around cloud computing, which is a positive indicator.” He explained that companies are looking carefully at how cloud computing can meet their needs. According to the survey, 6% plan to introduce it next year and another 4% the year after; it is predicted to reach up to 60% adoption by 2013.

The survey found that 80% of the companies using cloud computing said they were satisfied with the benefits achieved through accessing their services, applications and infrastructure in the cloud.

Only 13% of the respondents said cloud computing was not important for their business, as they didn’t see any benefits. According to Goldstuck, another handful cited poor infrastructure or security concerns, but most companies that still shun cloud computing are inhibited mainly by a lack of understanding. Goldstuck said a lack of standards, as well as security fears, are top challenges that discourage potential cloud computing adopters. He called for IT vendors to devise clearer standards for the benefit of the whole industry.

“There needs to be more education around the benefits of cloud computing and this education needs to come from the whole sector. Companies need to understand what cloud computing can do for the business and the immediate business benefit needs to be clear,” he added.

Gregory Kline, MD of Intel Southern Africa, explained that another big challenge was the physical versus virtual location of servers. “Certain governments don’t want citizen data to be hosted outside of a country, for example, Germany. The big question is, if you move data to public cloud services, how does the company or government enforce auditing of this data and who takes responsibility over it?”

David Angwin, director of marketing for EMEA at Wyse Technology, was one of the speakers at the IP Expo. He said desktop virtualisation is a transitional technology to cloud computing and in five to 10 years time, everybody will be using Web applications delivered via the cloud.