AMD spots shortfalls in corporate cloud skills

Chip firm says businesses lacking in-house resources for migration

Many businesses looking to adopt cloud computing platforms lack the necessary skills and resources, according to a new survey by AMD.

The company's Rise of Cloud Computing report examined the frequent disparity between businesses' ability to deploy the technology and the goals they hope to achieve.

The survey found that just 39 per cent of companies planning to move into the cloud space have the necessary skills to deploy and maintain the platforms.

By contrast, 75 per cent of companies that had already deployed cloud platforms had the necessary skills in-house.

John Fruehe, director of server product marketing at AMD, told V3.co.uk that the figures could signal the need for increased training and education platforms and higher demand for third-party support services.

The early days of cloud computing are similar to the rise of virtualisation, according to Fruehe, in that the two technologies follow different business models but the rollouts bear a strong resemblance.

"It is starting to look like virtualisation did a few years ago. Businesses are starting to move into it and everyone is getting their feet wet," he said.

The survey also revealed the types of information that businesses are moving to the cloud.

Despite previous suggestions that companies are hesitant to move high-value data to the cloud, the AMD study found that two thirds of those using such services had in excess of $250,000 worth of data being stored in the cloud.

"A lot of people think these might have been lower-end IT functions," said Freuhe. "But it really looks like there is a lot of trust and people are putting important things into the cloud."

However, Fruehe sees businesses basing their decision on legal risk, rather than monetary value.

Financial data and customer information, which are often covered by strict regulatory and compliance laws, are the data types companies are least interested in moving to the cloud.