CIF’s latest survey shows cloud take up growing

So, a growing number of cloud services users are happy with their lot and plan to increase their use of such services.

That is one of the findings from the latest survey conducted by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF). An over view of the findings was given to a recent Dell-sponsored Managed Services seminar by Andy Burton, the outgoing CIF chairman and `founding father’.

Cloud satisfaction is now high, with 91 percent of those organisations that have adopted the cloud in some way expressing that they are happy with the results so far. A sizeable majority seemed happy enough to want to go further.

Some 68 percent reported that they planned to increase their use of cloud services. What is more, the survey revealed that these businesses are now looking for more than the classic potential savings on Capex and Opex and are instead looking to use cloud services where impact and benefit analyses show that they add value to the business.

A rather surprising 55 percent were recorded as saying they plan to move all their IT requirements to the cloud: if not immediately then in the foreseeable future.

These figures suggest that the take up of cloud-delivered services continues to grow, and that does open up even more opportunities for the channel partners of the major service providers and software/solutions vendors to stake a claim to a significant share of the business. According to Burton, however, the survey showed that the channel is starting to split between the older, more established channel partners with a heritage in on-premise, systems-oriented solutions and what Burton described as “new channel partners that understand what the cloud is about. They have a service focus rather than a technology one.”

The main barriers to cloud adoption are starting to shift as well, and while security will ever be an issues for users, the bigger barriers shown in the latest survey are the perception that cloud services will introduce a loss in operating or business efficiency. This is being driven by the fact that, for some applications and business tasks cloud solutions may provide poorer performance or other losses in operating efficiency.

There is, however, a danger that specific cases, often driven by needs of a specific business use case, can become interpreted as general rules.

Data sovereignty issues are normally high on the list of barriers but the latest survey showed that users have a greater tolerance to where data is located. This can certainly be seen as another sign that the user community is gaining in sophistication about exploiting the cloud, and are learning how to be aware of which businesses cases actually require location and storage in specific locations or countries.

Burton  highlighted another interesting problem that has emerged, particularly where customers have opted for multiple SaaS services. This is the issue of data replication where, for example, each SaaS service requires its own version of the customer records.

This is certainly an issue that SaaS vendors need to consider with some urgency – or at least some third party ISV needs to attempt a solution quickly. It is already possible to utilise Single Sign-On tools with different SaaS offerings, so utilising a single, common customer record service should not be beyond the wit of the development community.

On the benefits side, along with an acknowledgement of the improved reliability available with the cloud, a rather less obvious benefit rose to the top. This is the greater flexibility of access to different technologies that is now possible. This shows a subtle but significant break with the long-held ethos of on-premise infrastructures.

It is no longer the case that not owning some technology means that a business cannot use it.

However, this does then raise an important related issue of contract terms between customer and service provider. This is particularly the case when it comes to the specific terms covering the extraction of data if a service is terminated by either party for any reason.

The recent case of the collapse of cloud storage service provider, Nirvanix, where users were given two weeks to extract their data from the business – a job that for some could be expected to take two months or more – demonstrated the need to make sure appropriate contract terms were applied that are satisfactory to both parties.

One encouraging sign on the subject of employment is that the majority of the cloud users are not simply shedding their existing IT staff as they move workload to the cloud. Instead they are redeploying them and re-purposing their skills, particularly in the area of moving from on-going support and maintenance roles – classic `keeping the lights on’ work – to more productive applications development roles.

One final curiosity that a delegate at the Dell seminar identified highlighted the gap that still seems to exist between those new users that come to the cloud afresh and with few pre-conceptions, and those that have extensive IT experience already. It seems that, while the survey shows that service providers that can demonstrate and offer technology understanding and good technical support are the ones to succeed best, it doesn’t always wash well with those with experience, especially those from large enterprises.

They, it seems, turn down any offer of support from the service providers, even when it is offered for free. They believe they know what they are doing. This, the delegate suggested, would normally turn out to not be the case in practice.