Next on my cloud computing survey list is BT Global Services Enterprise Intelligence survey.  The survey is broader than cloud computing, covering “CIOs and their relationship with senior corporate executives and IT systems users.”  The survey report includes:

  • the relationship between corporate information business performance
  • demand for information
  • successful collaboration
  • what the CIO needs to do in the recession
  • the challenges facing cloud services
  • security in the cloud
  • global attitudes to business success
  • the role of the CIO

As someone interested in active information and the business-IT relationship, I found interesting points throughout the report.  However, the one cloud computing finding I want to call out is cloud location. 

Many of the clouderati will tell you that the physical location of the cloud computing environment shouldn’t matter to adopters.  While technically and architecturally this might be true, given appropriate and reliable network connections, there are business implications of physical location.  Most notably, regulatory and compliance concerns for cloud-resident data

The BTGS Survey focused on the likelihood to use cloud computing environments in another country:

“For example, the majority of CIOs (57%) and senior executives (53%) around the world are not happy to run applications and store data on servers based outside their country, for IT security reasons.

Perceptions of where servers should be based revealed a pro-European focus. For CIOs and senior executives, the UK was the most popular place in the world for servers to be based, with a quarter (25%) saying they would be extremely comfortable with servers being based there.  This was followed by North America (22%), Western Europe (20%) and Nordic Europe (18%).

Conversely, two thirds (68%) of CIOs and senior executives said they would be uncomfortable with servers being based in Africa, closely followed by Latin America (53%), Russia/Central Asia (43%) and the Middle East (40%). The reasons cited for such unease were security/political issues, service quality, distance and time zone issues and cost.  Perceived high cost was specifically mentioned in relation to North America and Nordic Europe.”

Survey methodology: “Conducted by Datamonitor Ltd. Total sample sizes were 274 CIOs and other senior corporate executives in 12 countries and 2,476 employees who use corporate IT systems in 13 countries. Fieldwork was undertaken between 1 September 2009 and 30 September 2009. The survey was carried out online.”

Posted by brenda michelson at 3:00 pm in 100-days, Cloud Watch, adoption, assurance, compliance, cyber risk, data, regulatory | Permalink | Comments(0)
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This Burton Group slide floated by on Twitter this morning.  Nice illustration of who controls security.  Note how the organization always participates in control of the data.

Click on Picture to enlarge.

Posted by brenda michelson at 12:46 pm in Cloud Watch, analyst positions, cyber risk, security | Permalink | Comments(0)
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David Berlind is our Evening in the Cloud host. David says the discussion shouldn’t be about cloud computing definition, it should be about cloud computing benefits. The benefits will lead to the ‘right’ definition. Panel Format, each panelist has 8 minutes to “pitch us” as though they were visiting our organization. more >>

Posted by brenda michelson at 7:13 pm in Blog, adoption, compliance, cyber risk, data, provider positions | Permalink | Comments(0)
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Session: Security, Risk, Legislation, and Compliance: Pandora’s New Box. 

Speakers:

Drew Bartkiewicz, Vice President of Cyber Risk and New Media Markets, The Hartford

Robert Parisi, SVP & National Technology, Network Risk & Telecommunications Practice Leader, FINPRO, Marsh USA

I happened to sit next to Drew this morning, and we chatted a little on what he’s doing at The Hartford.  Drew isn’t in IT.  He runs the business line that covers (insures) the cloud operators, and it sounds like, in the near future smart cloud consumers.  He mentioned a phenomenal month-to-month business growth, which makes me believe that not only is the cloud real, but operators are serious about protecting against business risk, for themselves and their customers.

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Posted by brenda michelson at 7:35 pm in Blog, assurance, compliance, cyber risk, data, regulatory, security | Permalink | Comments(0)
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David Snead on Virtualization and Legal implications.  David is a practicing attorney focusing on web infrastructure concerns.  From a legal perspective, David shares that from a legal perspective, virtualization and cloud computing are similar.

Three aspects to be considered:

Software or Operating System

Expectations – your own, that of your users, that of your customers

Contract Review

Goal of session to give information on how to parse legal risk.  Lawyers who say “no legal risk” are misstating the truth. 

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Posted by brenda michelson at 4:08 pm in Blog, assurance, audit, compliance, cyber risk, regulatory, virtualization | Permalink | Comments(0)
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