Cloud Cost, Reliability Raise IT Concerns

The biggest concern IT staff has about their organization's use of cloud computing is far and away security. Almost three-quarters (73%) of survey respondents cited security as the greatest worry about the cloud. But half also cited cost (58%) and reliability (50%) as areas of concern.

That's according to State of the Cloud: A Security Perspective, a report from Dark Reading released in March 2022. The research surveyed decision-makers with IT job titles at organizations that use cloud services. Those organizations include companies of all sizes from a variety of industries, including technology, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and education.

Reliability looms large both because of its importance — employees and customers need to be able to access a company's tools in order for it to stay open for business — and because for cloud applications, reliability is largely outside the control of the organization. That lack of control can certainly raise anxiety levels.

The only other concerns that rise into the double digits are staff skills in cloud computing (26%), inadequate cloud functionality (10%), and putting too much data in the cloud (10%). Like reliability, these all tie back in with security, the responsibility for which is shared between the data owner and the cloud provider. As cloud implementation grows and matures across all industries, IT staff are learning how to secure data and configure cloud access for maximum security, which may alleviate the stress enough to keep "too much data" worries down to 10% of respondents.

To end on a positive note, only 6% of respondents say their service level agreements are inadequate or that their service providers try to upsell them on unwanted cloud services. Indeed, a full 2% of respondents say they have no concerns and are fully content with their cloud services. That's one response we'd all like to see grow.

For more data and insights, download the full report.