MANY IRISH companies have confidence in cloud computing but identify several barriers to adopting it, according to a survey from the Irish Internet Association’s working group on cloud computing.

Preliminary survey results show 42 per cent of Irish companies said they were very confident of the concept. However, 12.1 per cent did not understand the concept, 17 per cent said they were concerned about security and a further 17 per cent were worried about the reliability of such services.

“That, for me, is important, obviously we can resolve the understanding part but reliability and security are bigger issues,” said Gerry Power, a consultant with Sysco Software who is chairing the working group.

“In Ireland at the moment, the cost of getting that reliability is very high; having a service level agreement with ISPs to guarantee uptime comes at a price and that does away with some of the cost arguments in favour of cloud computing.”

Less than 10 per cent of Irish companies said they had “no real need” for cloud services. The survey will remain open until September 15th.

While e-mail is the most obvious application for cloud service, Mr Power said the real yardstick for progress would be when Irish companies start moving their business-specific applications to the cloud.

“Pretty much everyone agrees this is going to be the future. For Irish companies, this is an opportunity to excel in terms of giving themselves an advantage globally.”

The IIA also plans to publish a white paper later this year, in which senior Irish IT managers will cast a sceptical eye over the benefits of cloud computing.

– Gordon Smith