Many firms unclear about cloud computing: Survey

Security, privacy top concerns

Canadian businesses are unclear when it comes to cloud computing, according to a survey by Leger Marketing for Microsoft Canada. Nineteen per cent of the 700 c-suite executives polled who indicated they are not currently using cloud services were in fact leveraging cloud computing solutions and services.

"This confusion comes as no surprise because ‘cloud’ can refer to a wide variety of different services," said John Weigelt, national technology officer for Microsoft Canada. "The market is rife with misinformation and myths surrounding cloud computing, and Canadian businesses are losing out as a result.”

The cloud is a network-based way to process, manage and store data.

Those who are not using cloud-based services (67 per cent) admit they don't know enough to make major decisions about it at this time, found the survey.

Security and privacy are the top two barriers for entry into cloud computing for organizations including government and health care, whereas security and reliability (data loss) are the major barriers for private sectors, found the survey.

"It's important that businesses become more knowledgeable about cloud computing and understand that they can have both privacy and functionality," said Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario. "With proper privacy protections designed into the system from the very beginning of its lifecycle, and integrated at every system layer, businesses can gain the huge financial and competitive advantages of cloud and ensure security."

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