SINGAPORE – Industry practitioners and experts here in NetEvent’s 2015 APAC Press & Service Provider VIP Summit agree that security remains a major issue in the adoption of cloud by enterprises.
Cloud adoption continues to increase. IDC, for instance, reported that 80% of US companies are at least considering investing in cloud, and that 34% of businesses expect to increase cloud spending in the next 24 months. In fact, by 2018, business expenditures in IT – including cloud – is expected to reach $122 billion. Specifically related to cloud, today, 31.4% use external cloud; and in 24 months, this is expected to increase to over 40%.
Also, based on the data culled by Current Analysis, more than half (66%) of enterprises already currently use cloud services, with 58% of these enterprises using private cloud, 28% using hybrid, and the rest using public cloud. And among these cloud-users, almost half (44%) consider security as the main concern.
According to Dan Pitt, executive director of Open Networking Foundation, simply put, for many enterprises that turn to cloud, “hybrid is the goal, and security is the issue.”
The concern for security is understandable, said Amit Sinha Roy, vice president at TATA Communications.
“With the amount and the nature of information that we’re putting out, the layers of security required also increases,” Roy said. “Starting from who can access (the information put out), how they access (the information), to who can download the information, how it’s stored… And while there are standards that are there, as we keep increasing the (data), the concerns over security will only increase.”
Already, companies offering cloud-related services are offering security-specific services. Verizon, for instance, offers backend security services wherein “we work with customers if they select us, check their networks (for them), and report to them (security-related) incidences that they aren’t even aware of,” said Chris Rezentes, regional manager for partner and product strategy in Asia Pacific of Verizon. “Will we reach that point where we won’t worry about (security)? I’d say we’re a long way from that. But we keep improving in that level.”
For its part, Wedge Networks created, and offers a virtual product, “and what it can do is take data streams, ‘tear’ it apart, and then do whatever action a customer wants with the data,” said Steve Chappell, the company’s executive VP for sales and marketing/COO. Things do not work the way they did in the past anymore, “so we’re changing the way people deal with them.”
Meanwhile, TATA Communications offers new network services that evolve beyond today’s common WAN technologies, such as with its new IZO Platform, a cloud enablement platform to provide performance for cloud applications and services, and which makes use of the growth into each other of private carrier networks and the public Internet.
“More awareness is needed on the security side,” Rezentes said. “But companies should be willing to invest.”
The need to closely look into investing here as the cloud becomes ubiquitous was similarly stressed by Roy. “There is no getting away from cloud,” Roy ended.
Established in 1996, NetEvents organizes communication channels between press, analysts, equipment manufacturers, software companies, telecoms operators, datacenter/hosting companies, system integrators, IT channel partners and industry associations in the networking and telecoms marketplace. Its events include press and analyst summits; service provider summits; channel summits; and innovation summit.
Cloud adoption and the accompanying challenges were highlighted at NetEvent’s 2015 APAC Press & Service Provider VIP Summit in Singapore
