infrastructure and platforms. We also have a second study that focuses on cloud computing
providers located in the United States and Europe. This study will be released in the coming
months.
Cloud computing is being heralded as an important trend in information technology throughout
the world. Benefits for business and IT include reducing costs and increasing productivity. The
downside is that many organizations are moving swiftly to the cloud without making sure that the
information they put in the cloud is secure.
The purpose of the study is to learn from IT and IT security practitioners in the US and Europe the
current state of cloud computing security in their organizations and the most significant changes
anticipated by respondents as computing resources migrate from on-premise to the cloud. As
organizations grapple with how to create a secure cloud computing environment, we believe the
findings from this study can provide guidance on how to address business and technology risks
exacerbated by cloud computing. Specifically, in this study cloud computing users evaluate
security technologies and control practices they believe are best deployed either on-premise or in
the cloud. We also asked cloud computing users to rate the types of sensitive or confidential
information too risky to be moved to the cloud.
Cloud computing has been defined as the use of a collection of distributed services, applications,
information and infrastructure comprised of pools of computer, network, information and storage
resources. These components can be rapidly orchestrated, provisioned, implemented and
decommissioned using an on-demand utility-like model of allocation and consumption.