A survey by computer security company Symantec has revealed that virtualisation, particularly for servers and storage, is being increasingly used by UK businesses. However, it added that ‘C’ level decision makers are wary of moving business critical applications to the cloud over security concerns.
The ‘2011 Virtualisation and Evolution to the Cloud Survey’ examined how organisations plan to move business-critical initiatives to virtual and hybrid cloud computing environments. The survey included 200 respondents from the UK.
The study found that over half of the businesses have either adopted (51%) or are in the process of adopting (53%) sever and storage virtualisation. Respondents in the survey also said that virtualisation helped their businesses to improve agility, scalability and disaster recovery.
However, the study found a disconnect between IT staff and their bosses particularly at CEO, CFO and CISO level when it comes to moving business critical applications such as database and ERP applications to virtual or hybrid / private cloud environments.
At CEO level more than half (53%) said they were ‘less than somewhat open’ to the adoption of a private cloud, compared to 43% at CIO and 35% at CISO level. This compares to a level of 72% favourability at IT manager level.
Most of the concerns of CEOs were around security (77%), reliability (71%) and performance (71%).
The survey also hints that better communication between IT staff and ‘C’ level decision makers could solve some of the hindrances in cloud adoption. Over two-thirds of IT managers said that goals related to server virtualisation performance were achieved.
Among other challenges to server virtualisation are: disaster recovery (73%), performance degradation (73%), software licensing issues (69%) and concerns over compliance (62%).
Symantec vice-president of virtualisation and cloud solutions John Magee said cloud computing represents a major shift within IT – changing from a traditional IT delivery to a service-provider model.
Magee said, "Moving to the cloud is a complex evolution for many companies and it’s essential that IT and executives are aligned on initiatives."
"Virtualisation is an enabler for private and hybrid clouds and our survey shows that planning a seamless move is critical to achieving all the simplicity, affordability and efficiency that these environments have to offer."
