A study commissioned by NTT Com Security, formerly known as Integralis, has characterized organizations as fitting into five cloud 'personas' defined by their levels of enthusiasm for cloud computing and the extent of adoption.
The five personas include:
- The Controller, which is the least cloud-enthusiastic group
- The Accepter, which is likely to be pessimistic about the cloud's security and its ability to be legally compliant
- The Experimenter, which sees private cloud deployments as a safe option but are still unlikely to trust their data with public or hybrid solutions when security and legislation are big issues
- The Believer, which is likely to have more mature cloud solutions; used cloud services longer than Experimenters; and are likely to have explored hybrid and public solutions in more detail
- The Embracer, which has been using cloud long-term and already have much of their data and many of their services deployed through the cloud
"Cloud is a well-established and maturing technology, but levels of adoption still vary across different geographies," said Philip Kwa, vice president of ASEAN at NTT Com Security. "The report suggests that when it comes to the large companies, Singapore has embraced the cloud and is only second to the US/ Canada in terms of adoption. However, with 88% of businesses in the republic citing compliance issues as slowing down cloud adoption, it is likely that adoption rates will continue to increase as companies come to terms with these requirements."
The study also highlighted the attributes of different cloud personas in each country, with Singapore falling mainly into the Embracer and Believer groups, much like the US and Canada, while other Asian nations such as Hong Kong are dominated by the Controller and Accepter personas. Overall, 35% of enterprises surveyed in the study are Experimenters, followed by 21.9% Accepters.
Breaking with tradition
For 61% of the Experimenters, the cloud will replace or have replaced their traditional data centers. As a result, around 29% of their IT budget is dedicated to cloud computing on average, and 91% have either seen increases to their revenues or their profits as a result of the widespread adoption of cloud.