Reach for the sky
CompTIA - a professional training organization for the IT industry - has published a new bit of research looking at the attitude of UK SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to cloud computing.
Right now around 18 percent of UK SMEs use cloud solutions, but a further 30 percent plan to implement them over the next year - a near tripling. The experience seems to have been overwhelmingly positive for those that have adopted the cloud, with 81 percent of them planning to increase their cloud usage over the next two years.
There are still plenty of things to be cautious of before selling your soul entirely to remotely-hosted computing, including security and the reliability of both the service and the Internet connection. It's thought that the growth of tablets as a business device also present opportunities and challenges.
Seth Robinson, CompTIA's director of technology analysis, said: "Tablets will open new challenges for IT staff, as employees use them outside work. Tablets can get infections from home networks, which can spread to the corporate network. Support for tablets' closed hardware system is different to that of PCs or laptops. These and other issues will need to be considered by the IT department in building a mobile device management policy."
Coincidentally tech consultancy Praesidium Consulting has also been having a look at cloud computing - looking at whether the hype is justified and what risks are associated with diving in.
"The Cloud is a game changing technology that will transform how organisations buy and manage IT services. It is the obvious and immediate choice for today's digital natives and is being accepted by enterprises of all different sizes as a smarter, more cost effective way to deliver services," said Simon Collins, Praesidium veep.
"However, as with many new technologies, it also brings with it a number of threats to operators and users in terms of data security, service assurance and performance management. Operators must do all they can to ensure data is not compromised and that their customers are protected against the unauthorised access and use of private or personal information."
