Cloud computing is gaining critical mass among large enterprises, with more than 80% of respondents are at least in trial stages for public and private cloud computing deployments, according to a survey conducted by F5 Networks.
In addition, despite the maturing rate of adoption of cloud computing among enterprises, the study shows that there is considerable confusion and concern around the definition of cloud computing.
Jason Needham, Sr. Director of product management at F5, said: “It’s no surprise that large enterprises are attracted to cloud computing because of the promise of an agile, scalable IT infrastructure and reduced costs. However, this survey shows that despite interest in the cloud, widespread enterprise adoption of cloud computing is contingent upon solving access, security, and performance concerns.”
The survey found that IT managers are aggressively adopting cloud computing with half of the respondents saying that they have already deployed a public cloud computing implementation. In addition, private cloud computing models are also finding broad acceptance in enterprises, with 45% of respondents currently using private clouds. Consequently, cloud computing is also meriting budgetary consideration, with 66% of respondents indicating that they have a dedicated budget for cloud computing initiatives.
The survey noted that respondents had little agreement on how to define the term Cloud computing. As part of the study, F5 conducted a focus group with enterprise IT managers, network architects, and cloud service providers to determine a definition for cloud computing.
The focus group arrived upon the following definition: Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them.
Furthermore, cloud computing employs a model for enabling available, convenient, and on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
Other findings from the survey include: Cloud computing is more than Software as a Service (SaaS), enterprises employ a range of technologies in their cloud computing with Access Control as the top concern for them, and people within the enterprise that influence cloud computing decisions go beyond IT.
Respondents named IT, application development, and line of business (LOB) stakeholders as the top influencers for cloud computing decisions.
