European cloud adoptions up by 43 per cent in 2014

Cloud adoption in Europe increased by 43 per cent in 2014, new figures have revealed.

According to the sixth Cloud Adoption and Risk report from Skyhigh Networks, there has been a dramatic upturn in both the range and volume of cloud services deployed, indicating greater confidence in this type of technology and knowledge of just what it can offer.

Based on data from the behaviour of 15 million users across 350 enterprises, the report showed that all service categories showed growth over 2014 demonstrating a wider acceptance of cloud as a first class computing platform. One key finding was that in the fourth quarter of 2014 there was 43 per cent more cloud services in use than in Q4 of 2013 - 897 compared to 621.

Meanwhile, the study also uncovered that there was a 97 per cent increase in developers adopting cloud technology, showing this to be one area where the technology is becoming extremely popular as it provides the software and compute power they require but without costly upfront expenditure. Furthermore, there was found to be a 53 per cent increase in the use of cloud for collaboration and a 20 per cent increase in the use of cloud-based file sharing services.

As the title of the report suggests, the research was not just about cloud adoption but also the associated risks. Unsurprisingly data security was still the primary concern, with many cloud services not using the most basic levels of data protection - in particular, data encryption was not deployed as commonly as it ought to be.

Of all the cloud services in use by the surveyed companies, just 17 per cent offer multi-factor authentication. Moreover, just five per cent are ISO 27001 certified and only 11 per cent encrypt data at rest.

Businesses looking to move services into the cloud should evaluate the performance of their existing network and consider setting up a leased line or MPLS network.