UK firms 'more confident' about cloud than Europeans
UK firms 'more confident' about cloud than Europeans
Despite widespread concerns about the security of cloud computing, it appears that UK companies are more comfortable about this aspect of the technology than their counterparts on the Continent.
A poll of European IT plans for the coming year carried out by US-based consultancy TechTarget found that UK firms are happier about storing their data in centres operated by third party suppliers than companies in other European countries.
The report, 2014 Priorities Europe, found that UK businesses are more likely to look at different services and business models when they are planning data storage. Over the next 12 months, 45 per cent of UK businesses signalled that they were considering spending more on cloud computing this year, compared to just over three in 10 across Europe as a whole.
Although around an average of 25 per cent of organisations based in both Britain and across the Continent as a whole said they proposed to start using private cloud providers during 2014, those in the UK appeared to have greater confidence in the integrity of offsite, third-party storage.
In the UK, just under a third of companies said they would store data with outside cloud providers, but the figure dipped to 20 per cent in Germany and 19 per cent in France. The European average was 22 per cent, 10 per cent lower than the UK figure.
The European average has actually fallen from 25 per cent in 2013’s report, while the UK figure has jumped from 27 per cent to 32 per cent in the last 12 months. The difference could be due to the fact that concerns about secret surveillance by US intelligence services was more pronounced on mainland Europe that it was in the UK, Computer Weekly reported.
British businesses were also more likely to use software as a service (SaaS) and managed services providers that their counterparts across Europe.
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.
