07-26-13 | Blog Post
According to a recent survey by IT research firm Neovise as reported by CIOInsight.com of over 800 IT decision-makers in the U.S., enterprise cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the most widely adopted form of cloud computing. Thirty-seven percent of organizations use private, on-premise IaaS, while 35 percent use private, off-premise IaaS clouds. Another 37 percent use public IaaS clouds.
When it comes to the importance of enterprise private cloud attributes, security for sensitive data is rated as highly or somewhat important, at 93 percent of respondents. For concerns around security, check your cloud provider’s dates and reports of independent audits, including SSAE 16, SOC 2, HIPAA (for healthcare) and PCI DSS (for ecommerce and retail). Or, ask for a tour of their facilities to verify their physical, administrative and technical security safeguards.
A close second in desired private cloud attributes is better provisioning (91 percent) and third, advanced management (87 percent). Ask your cloud provider what kind of access they give your organization for control – typically they will provide a web portal you can log into and use to start, stop, and take snapshots of your servers.
Ninety-four percent surveyed reported cloud application usage included disaster recovery, while 93 percent used it for application testing. Another 92 percent used it for production of applications of average importance, and 88 used the cloud to support mission-critical applications.
For the public cloud, IT decision-makers favor reliability and availability at 67 percent (beyond security concerns). Consistency of performance is second at 64 percent, and performance is 63 percent. For a reliable and available cloud, check your cloud provider’s infrastructure and data center design for full redundancy of all critical components – including power, network, servers, switches, and more.
Read more about cloud security and private cloud infrastructures:
How the HIPAA Cloud Protects PHI for Physician Software as a Service (SaaS)
How does the HIPAA compliant cloud support and enable progression of health IT and patient care? By creating a high availability, reliable data and application hosting infrastructure that’s secure enough to meet healthcare industry data security compliance regulations, like the Health … Continue reading →
Cloud Security Report: Only 27 Percent Rely on Encrypted Cloud
A report released by the Ponemon Institute in Traverse City, Michigan reveals that nearly 74 percent of cloud consumers believe the cloud provider is the most responsible for protecting their data, while an alarming 63 percent of respondents aren’t even … Continue reading →
Securing Regulated Data with a Private Cloud Infrastructure
Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute described how the shift of the attack surface from the mobile device is moving to unsecure places in the cloud environment with unsecure data, as reported by HealthITSecurity.com. More specifically, … Continue reading →
References:
Enterprise IT Gains Cloud Sophistication
