Next Generation Cloud Study Reveals Vast Majority of I.T. Leaders Concerned With Security and Privacy of Data for Cloud Implementations

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - May 20, 2015) - Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today announced results of an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) study, "Preparing for next-generation cloud: Lessons learned and insights shared," which found that 87% of the organizations surveyed indicated their senior management were concerned with security and privacy of corporate data for cloud implementations. Responses also indicated that outages and failures of public cloud implementations were twice as likely to occur when compared to private cloud. Almost half of the respondents indicated the biggest risk of a failed implementation to be loss of customer data.

Cloud computing continues to transform the entire IT industry. It's created new market opportunities, adjacent product or service opportunities and new lines of business for many organizations. It has also given IT organizations, providers and integrators more agile, streamlined and cost-effective ways to deliver services to users and customers. While cloud computing has delivered many benefits, cloud adoption also continues to challenge even the most nimble of companies.

Study Highlights

• 67% of respondents have suffered some type of incident or issue related to their cloud computing implementation.
• Of the respondents experiencing an incident, 9% indicated it as being "high damage", while 55% indicated the damage as being "limited" and 34% "medium."
• 46% of respondents consider "loss of customer data" as the biggest risk to their organization of a failed cloud implementation, followed by loss of revenue (40%) and breach of customer privacy (36%).
• 26% of survey respondents who experienced a cloud incident cite a "prolonged failure to integrate" with the public cloud as a problem. A majority (36%) cited a technical error on the part of their own organization as being a primary cause of the incident.

By gathering lessons learned from cloud implementations of 232 global IT executives, the 2015 Economist Intelligence Unit report identifies five best practices that can help organizations make the most of their cloud opportunities. These best practices can help drive greater business agility, improved data access and a more productive, mobilized workforce: