Almost half of Malaysians confident with moving to public cloud
KUCHING: About 44 per cent of Malaysians surveyed felt confident their organisations move to public cloud was secure, according to Barracuda Networks, Inc (Barracuda) a leading provider of cloud- connected security and storage solutions.
The findings were part of a survey on public cloud commisioned by Barracuda and conducted by Vanson Bourne amongst 450 people in six countries in Asia Pacific (APAC) including Malaysia. Respondents came from different sectors and industries including manufacturing, technology, financial services and more.
“58 per cent of the Malaysians surveyed, said that they have more trust on public cloud today as compared to five years ago. Yet only 36.1 per cent of Malaysian respondents said their organisations were using public cloud,” Barracuda vice president of Asia Pacific James Forbes-May said.
Malaysian respondents also choose Google as their preferered public cloud provider with 70 per cent of respondents organisations using the service.
Amazon Web Services was next at 48 per cent while Microsoft Azure followed close with 40 per cent and IBM Bluemix at 34 per cent. Respondents also stated that their organisations used more than one cloud provider.
Sixty-nine per cent of APAC responders stated that this was due to different providers having different strength, while 35 per cent said no one provider was able to provide everything they needed on one platform.
This however creates a complex IT environment and higher costs. Public cloud accounted for 22.71 per cent of IT budget spending for these Malaysian respondents organisations.
Sixty-sixty per cent of respondents in Malaysia shared that their organisations had added additional security measures to secure their public cloud access and use. This leaves one-third open to security breaches when they leave the security responsibilities solely on their Infrastructure as a service ( IAAS) provider.
“Only 60 per cent of the Malaysians surveyed were aware of their organisations and public cloud providers responsibility in terms of security.
“This was much lower than the APAC average of 78 per cent. It is essential that organisations understand that they need to take necessary precautions when storing data on public cloud,” ForbesMay explained.
“Sixty- eight per cent of Malaysian surveyed said their organisations have been targeted by cyber security attacks in the past. These attacks hinder business operations and worst business loss.
“One-third of the APAC respondents (37 per cent) said customers or employees lost faith in the organisations security measures. While 30 per cent reported a temporary closure of business while 22 per cent of those surveyed entirely lost their customers.”
Despite the security concerns, 65 per cent of the Malaysian respondents organisations, store customer bank details in public cloud, while 48 per cent admitted to storing personal employee data on public cloud.
The survey results points that cloud adoption by organisations are driven by various factors. 63 per cent of APAC respondents report that easy integration with legacy technology and strong protection of application in public cloud (60 per cent) were important drivers to choosing a public cloud Iaas provider.
“All respondents reported that their organisation has benefitted from moving to the public cloud – improved security of applications ( 55 per cent) and greater scalability ( 55 per cent) toped the list of benefits. On average, respondents report that their organisation has seen a positive ROI of approximately 29.26 per cent,” Forbes-May concluded.
Of respondents whose organisation uses more than one public cloud provider, over nine in ten (96 per cent) say that their organisation would see benefits from using fewer service providers, with better protection of applications in the cloud being the most likely (56 per cent).
Barracuda solutions are cloud ready and designed for hybrid deployments. Barracuda on-premises and cloud solutions can work seamlessly together to protect customers’ data and applications regardless of where they reside.