A global survey commissioned by Barracuda and conducted by independent market researcher Vanson Bourne indicated that security is the top concern restricting faster public cloud adoption. 70% of the 750 survey respondents in total, respondents who came from organizations of all sizes and across a broad range of sectors, in EMEA, APAC and the U.S., say that security concerns restrict their organization’s adoption of public cloud.
On average, organizations currently have 45% of IT infrastructure running in the public cloud, but that number is expected to increase to 76% in the next five years.
Overall, the study indicates that while adoption rates for public cloud continue to grow, security is still the number one roadblock. 75% of respondents have already been targeted by a cyber-attack. Security concerns include the security of public cloud infrastructure, the impact of cyber-attacks, and the security of applications deployed in public cloud.
Integrations/network is the No. 2 concern with public cloud adoption. These concerns include integrating public cloud with legacy technologies, better integration with private cloud, and enhanced integration with on-premises infrastructure.
SD-WAN
Secure software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) fully integrated into public cloud is the solution of choice by Vanson Bourne and Barracuda Networks. Only 23% of respondents have already deployed SD-WAN, but another 51% are either in the process of deploying or expect to deploy within the next 12 months. SD-WAN is being used by more than half of those who have added security to their public cloud.
As more IT infrastructure moves to public cloud, cloud providers will offer more native network capabilities, and public cloud will expand to include more network functionality. According to Vanson Bourne and Barracuda, the vast majority of organizations would need their security vendors to offer advanced security and cloud connectivity tightly integrated with the major cloud platforms.
