Cloud confidence sky high among UK firms

New research suggests that more than half of IT decision makers would move all of their IT systems to the cloud, despite security concerns

More than half of UK businesses would consider moving all of their IT to the cloud, according to new research released today.

A survey of 500 IT decision makers, carried out by cloud-hosting provider Databarracks, showed that 52 per cent of those asked would consider moving their entire IT systems estate to the cloud. Some 53 per cent said that they are already using some cloud services.

Of those asked, 28 per cent said that cloud computing was used to increase resilience, while 30 per cent claimed that cloud improved technology.

Databarracks' Data Health Check Report surveyed 500 IT managers at businesses of varying sizes across a range of verticals including technology, education and public services. The majority of respondents came from businesses with fewer than 100 employees, while 18 per cent of those asked came from firms with between 100 and 5,000 staff.

The reduction of capital expenditure was only an important incentive for five per cent of respondents, and security still ranked highly as a priority when choosing a cloud provider, with 20 per cent claiming it to be the most important aspect.

In September, IDC predicted that spending on public cloud across the globe would reach $40bn by the end of 2012. The analyst firm further predicted that the cloud market is growing at five times the rate of the IT industry as a whole.

Databarracks' managing director Peter Groucutt said that businesses are becoming more and more confident in the cloud.

He said: "It has not taken long for British businesses to be won over by cloud computing, with a large percentage prepared to envisage putting all their systems in the cloud.

"The majority of companies in the UK have tested the waters with some form of cloud service and evidently can now see the benefits of moving their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud."

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