“Big data might very well be the catalyst that will push adoption of public cloud into overdrive,” says Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData Corporation. “Real-time scalability will be key and a secure cloud will be the enabler.” Security vendor CloudPassage has released results from a survey of 200 IT professionals regarding their use of public cloud resources for business-critical apps. It turns out that 4 out of 5 companies are using some sort of cloud infrastructure, whether it’s public, hybrid or private. Here are some nuggets sent to me by friend and CloudPassage Chief Evangelist Andrew Hay: 70 percent more people are planning to use public cloud environments for temporary workload/big data in 2013 as compared to 2012 42 percent of those in the public cloud use cloud servers for external applications Public cloud hosting is also being used for the deployment of internal applications — 36 percent report using it for HR, CRM, ERP and the like Cloud security concerns are fading. This year, just 23 percent said they’re concerned about the lack of perimeter defenses and network controls in the public cloud. Many of the respondents have big plans for public cloud deployments, and big data and media are the prime motivators. Seventy percent more people plan to use public cloud environments for temporary workload/big data in 2013 as compared to this past year. They also plan to increase their use of cloud-based media hosting and internal development and testing in 2013 by 31 percent and 29 percent, respectively. According to the press release Hay sent me, “Increased adoption of public cloud can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that specific security concerns are beginning to fade. This year, just 23 percent of respondents said they are concerned about the lack of perimeter defenses and network controls in the public cloud. Only eight percent voiced fear about providers having access to their guest servers, whereas 20 percent are worried about the multi-tenancy of the public cloud.” I’m glad to see companies diving in. The question that remains to be answered is if they will handle it in a way that minimizes the potential for security breaches. Time will tell. Related content news Gwinnett Medical Center investigating possible data breach After being contacted by Salted Hash, Gwinnett Medical Center has confirmed they're investigating a security incident By Steve Ragan Oct 02, 2018 6 mins Regulation Data Breach Hacking news Facebook: 30 million accounts impacted by security flaw (updated) In a blog post, Facebook’s VP of product management Guy Rosen said the attackers exploited a flaw in the website's 'View As' function By Steve Ragan Sep 28, 2018 4 mins Data Breach Security news Scammers pose as CNN's Wolf Blitzer, target security professionals Did they really think this would work? By Steve Ragan Sep 04, 2018 2 mins Phishing Social Engineering Security news Congress pushes MITRE to fix CVE program, suggests regular reviews and stable funding After a year of investigation into the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, the Energy and Commerce Committee has some suggestions as to how it can be improved By Steve Ragan Aug 27, 2018 3 mins Vulnerabilities Security Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe