Symantec: Virtualization and cloud adoption trends

The survey also highlighted that security and compliance concerns prevent financial organizations from moving business-critical applications to a virtualization or hybrid cloud environment.

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced the results of its latest research examining the adoption of virtualization and cloud computing in the European financial sector. The study examined the awareness, inclusion, goals, and challenges of financial sector organizations compared to other industries. The results show that financial services institutions in Europe are much more open to emerging technologies (including cloud computing, virtualization and mobile) than other industries, and also have significant IT budgets to deploy new systems.

The main findings are:

• The financial sector is aware of the latest IT trends: 81 percent of financial institutions are considering using the cloud, compared to 70 percent in other industries. In addition, financial institutions in the EMEA region mentioned new technologies and mobile solutions more often than other respondents in the survey.
• Financial organizations are more advanced in implementing virtualization than in cloud computing: 60 percent of financial organizations are either in the process of implementing or have already implemented server virtualization, compared to a sample of all industries where only 45 percent use this technology. The industry is taking stricter use of private or hybrid clouds, with only 17 percent of respondents planning to move business-critical applications to hybrid or private cloud over the next 12 months.
• Financial Service Providers' Budgets Support Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Despite concerns about cloud computing in the EMEA region, more financial respondents reported having adequate budgets to implement server virtualization and hybrid / private cloud than respondents in other industries.
• Security is paramount in the financial services industry: As the financial services industry has to meet increasingly stringent security standards, security issues around virtualization can have a major impact on organizations ’decision to adopt - or not - to use technology. Of those financial organizations that said they did not plan to build a private / hybrid cloud, 61 percent cited security as a major concern. This is in stark contrast to the sample covering all industries, where only 31 percent of respondents cited security as the main reason for not deploying a hybrid / private party.
• The gap between expectations and reality shows market development: Emerging technologies are often accompanied by high promises, which in turn increase expectations. Reduced costs, better scalability, higher performance, and better disaster recovery preparedness are just a few examples of the goals that respondents wanted to achieve by implementing virtualization and cloud computing technology. However, the true performance of these technologies often leads to a gap in expectations. The most significant gap was in Private Storage-as-a-Service - a sure sign of an immature market. The area where expectations best met reality was server virtualization, where most financial service organizations have indeed experienced better scalability and agility, and gained more time to deploy new servers.

Suggestions:

• With a private cloud infrastructure that allows organizations to take control and adhere to strict security rules, financial institutions can reap the benefits of the cloud while reducing risk.
• Financial organizations are aware of the benefits of cloud computing and even have the budget to deploy the technology. To more effectively support managers in taking the move, IT managers need to establish rules to clarify concerns such as security and performance regulation.
• Keep in mind that despite the fuss, the cloud is still new and in many cases is still being introduced to the market. Work with experts to set realistic expectations for your technology.

The study was based on the responses of 135 respondents working in the financial sector, involving seven countries in the EMEA region. These responses were compared with a broader EMEA survey of 1100 respondents.

Source: Press release