86 per cent of cloud migration fears are still data breaches and loss

Key points

Summit.

Is GDPR still stoking fears?

Nearly 90 per cent of concerns around migration from on-premise to cloud functions or storage in the UK enterprise is based on data breaches or data loss, new research from Computing has found.

As part of my keynote at the Cloud & Infrastructure Summit North, which we're hosting today in Manchester, I carried out some 'state of the nation' surveys to provide a grounding for the Computing Cloud Report 2018 and the results seemed to suggest the most basic fears are still ruling cloud decision-making.

When I asked around 270 survey respondents for their top three security-based concerns when moving to the cloud, an overwhelming 86 per cent reported that data breach and loss was their primary fear, with 45 per cent (the next highest scorest answer) saying insufficient due diligence of employees was also a big worry.

When I asked a similar question around governance, 70 per cent of respondents flagged up "risks around data handling by third party vendors", and 57 per cent cited "shadow IT issues around non-company approved cloud applications or services". A further 57 per cent said "confusion or disagreement about internal company staff's responsibility for data" was one of their top three fears.

Put together, it's fairly obvious that a distrust of human error, lack of skills and confused roles in the cloud - coupled, I imagine, with GDPR worries as we approach the implementation date of 25 May 2018 - is still massively driving reticence to move to the cloud.

That's a shame, as our research also shows that cutting-edge offerings such as serverless cloud are now offering cheap, flexible and extremely powerful opportunities for organisations to start really innovating in business.

It seems many organisations really still need to get their houses in order first, though. Or at least, overcome traditional fears and begin a more rigorous testing or development phase.

Check back to Computing throughout today for the latest news highlights from the Cloud & Infrastructure Summit North.