Technology

Study: Non-Technology Roadblocks Prevalent With Cloud Computing

Non-IT issues like people, process, and policy are far more likely than technology to be a barrier for companies engaging in cloud computing projects, according to a survey of IT professionals and decision-makers.

As more businesses move into cloud computing, the roadblocks they’re facing most often are unrelated to IT issues, according to a new study by 451 Research’s service TheInfoPro.

The semiannual study is based on extensive live interviews with 100 IT professionals and primary decision-makers at large and midsize enterprises in North America and Europe.

The survey found that although cloud computing activity has increased, 83 percent of respondents are facing significant roadblocks to deploying their cloud initiatives, a 9 percent increase from the late 2012 study. Only 15 percent cited IT roadblocks, compared with 68 percent who cited non-IT roadblocks.

“As organizations are completing their transition to a virtualized datacenter infrastructure, their focus is switching rapidly to cloud computing projects,” Peter ffoulkes, TheInfoPro’s research director for cloud computing, said in a news release on the study.

“Despite this shift of attention and the associated growth opportunity, there are major roadblocks—for the most part, they are not technology related and fall within the domain of people, process, policy, and organizational issues, which are more complex for vendors to address,” ffoulkes noted.

Among the highlights from the survey:

  • 60 percent of respondents said they see cloud computing as a natural evolution of IT service delivery and don’t allocate separate budgets for cloud projects.
  • Of the respondents who do have separate cloud budgets, 69 percent said they expect their spending to increase in both 2013 and 2014 compared with the prior year.
  • Internal, private cloud projects still dominate cloud-related activity cited by 35 percent of respondents. But in just the past six months, information and software as a service (IaaS and SaaS) activity has doubled to between 30 percent and 33 percent of the projects mentioned.
  • Regulatory and compliance issues are essentially “pass/fail” criteria for public cloud provider selection, but security remains paramount as the biggest pain point for IT professionals implementing cloud computing projects.

Does your association use cloud computing in any of its projects, and if so, what kind of obstacles have you experienced? Let us know in the comments.

(iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

Daniel Ford

By Daniel Ford

Daniel Ford is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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