Cloud users rising exponentially, survey finds

Cloud users rising exponentially, survey finds

There has been a substantial rise in the number of companies adopting all forms of cloud computing over the past few years, a new survey has revealed.

A study by Gigaom Research and North Bridge Venture Partners, found that 74 per cent of companies are currently using software-as-a-service (SaaS) – this figure is up from just 13 per cent in 2011.

Researchers analysed the inhibitors and drivers behind cloud adoption across a sample of 1,358 respondents. They also found that 56 per cent of businesses are using infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) technologies to harness elastic computing resources, while 41 per cent are leveraging platform-as-a-service (PaaS) tools to develop and test new applications.

Other findings from the survey included agility, cost and scalability being named as the top three drivers for cloud adoption. Moreover, nearly 67 per cent of respondents said they believed they would move their data to the cloud over the next two years.

When it comes to security, 49 per cent revealed they were still concerned about data security in the cloud. In separate research by MarketsandMarkets, analysts have suggested that spending on cloud security will rocket from $4.2bn (£2.5bn) in 2014 to $8.71bn by 2019, as an indication of companies and vendors attempting to address the lack of faith users still have in this area.

However, to underline just how far-reaching and all-encompassing the cloud is today, 45 per cent of the survey respondents said they already do, or they plan to, run their company from the cloud.

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