Survey Indicates More than 80 Percent of Large Enterprises are Testing or Implementing Cloud Computing Solutions

F5 Networks today released the results of a survey examining cloud computing adoption and initiatives at large enterprises. The results indicate that the vast majority of large enterprises throughout North America are involved in cloud computing initiatives: More than 80 percent of the 250 IT managers surveyed replied that they are at least in trial phase for cloud computing deployments. Half of the respondents have already deployed a public cloud computing solution and 66 percent indicated that they have a dedicated budget for cloud computing projects.

Other survey results include:

• Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) were ranked ahead of software as a service (SaaS) as the most important components of cloud computing.
• Access control was the top concern for cloud computing initiatives, while network security and virtualization were named as key technologies.
• Cloud computing influencers go beyond IT to include application development and line of business stakeholders.

“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,” said Jason Needham, senior director of product management at F5. “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. As organizations turn to the cloud to increase IT agility, it is important for them to understand the technical components of the cloud and how the cloud will affect the network before developing an implementation strategy.”