Stratus Technologies-ITIC Survey Finds IT Groups Still in a Fog Over Cloud Computing

MAYNARD, Mass., July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent rash of downtime in major data centers highlights one of the main reasons only 15 percent of IT managers in a new Stratus Technologies-ITIC survey are implementing cloud computing projects: doubts about performance, redundancy and fault tolerance in cloud infrastructures.

The "IT Performance Trends Survey" of nearly 300 IT professionals in industries ranging from construction to financial services to health care found that an overwhelming majority of the corporate respondents are concerned about data integrity and data access in cloud computing environments -- if not outright skeptical.

"Putting all our eggs in one basket -- a basket that we have limited control over and limited access to -- is not high on our list of priorities," replied an IT manager at a financial firm with 5,000 desktops and 500 servers.

His was one of the blunter assessments of cloud computing, but it wasn't out of the survey's mainstream. Questions about basic operational issues dominated responses. Data integrity was a major concern for 83 percent of the respondents, as security remains a significant obstacle for cloud computing environments. Sixty-three percent are concerned about latency/response times in cloud environments. Outages occurring within days of each other at Google, Rackspace Hosting, and Equinext Inc. in late June and early July validated that concern and others about data and application availability in the cloud.

"As attractive a concept as cloud computing is, the survey results show that IT groups are being very hard-eyed about practical issues before they put serious resources into it," said ITIC Principal Laura DiDio. "They need to know that cloud environments are reliable and fault tolerant before entrusting them with strategic data and applications."Closely related to data integrity were concerns about unscheduled downtime. More than half (52 percent) of respondents can't accept downtime for contracted services, and 43 percent want outclauses and penalties to discourage downtime.

Survey feedback

Other survey responses that illustrated a resistance to cloud computing include:

"I would not trust business critical processes to the cloud," said a consulting provider with 250 desktops and 40 servers in the organization.

"Downtime is the bane of an IT professional's life. When a system fails that is on-site and locally managed, the IT professional is able to take action by replacing parts, rebuilding the operating system, restoring from tape, etc. Compare that to a failure in a cloud computing scenario, when all you can do is report the problem and wait. That, and respond to constant questions from users and management of 'when will the system be back up?' or 'When can I get access to my data?' I think most IT people are action oriented, and this new hurry up and wait concept will require a level of patience that may be lacking," said an IT manager at a healthcare organization with 500 desktops and 40 servers.With words like "trust," "failure" and "access" studding responses, the survey revealed a strong desire for qualities in cloud environments that make internal IT trustworthy: reliability and resilience.

"All of the major concerns the survey uncovered about cloud computing are rooted in a need for the continuous availability that comes from fault-tolerant systems," said Phil Riccio, Stratus product marketing manager, virtualization products. "Cloud computing is an excellent strategy for maximizing resources and lowering IT overhead, but its role will be restricted to non-strategic IT assets until it provides reliability for critical applications."
About Stratus Technologies
Stratus Technologies focuses exclusively on helping its customers keep critical business operations online without interruption. Business continuity requires resiliency and superior availability throughout the IT infrastructure, including virtual environments. Stratus delivers a range of solutions that includes software-based high availability, fault-tolerant servers, availability consulting and assessment, and remote systems management services. Based on its 29 years of expertise in product and services technology for total availability, Stratus is a trusted solutions provider to customers in manufacturing, health care, financial services, public safety, transportation & logistics, and other industries. For more information, visit www.stratus.com.

Stratus and ftServer are registered trademarks of Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd. The Stratus Technologies logo and Avance are trademarks of Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.