Businesses in the UK and Ireland take first steps towards Cloud Computing

Published 3rd March 2010

DITTON PARK, March 3, 2010 – CA, Inc. (NASDAQ:CA), the world’s leading independent IT management software company has released the results of a new independent survey: Unleashing the Power of Virtualization – Cloud Computing and the Perceptions of European Business. Businesses in the UK and Ireland are still unconvinced by the benefits of the next logical step, cloud computing, according to the survey. While only 8% of respondents think of cloud as a short-term fad, an additional 82% need more convincing.

The survey of 550 enterprises, carried out by Vanson Bourne, a respected international research organisation, on behalf of CA, found that server virtualization is gaining real traction, with 84% of respondents surveyed saying that they are either implementing it or planning to. However, the number drops significantly when looking at the other steps which move from a static environment towards cloud computing: automatic provisioning (24%), automatic deprovisioning (14%) and dynamic resource allocation (34%).

Commenting on this, Colin Bannister, VP technical sales, CA, said “Our experience tells us that companies are using virtualization in their data centres to reduce costs. However, they indicate they do not yet know how to automate, manage and secure virtualized environments. Until they do this they will struggle to reap the full benefits of virtualization, which go far beyond the cost savings of server consolidation. Because of this, CA will soon be launching The Cloud Academy – a series of educational roundtables which are designed to help show organisations such as these how to get the most out of their virtualisation efforts and how to mature them towards a cloud- connected infrastructure and services.”


Advantages of cloud remain unclear to enterprises

58% of businesses see cloud as synonymous with outsourcing (external cloud) and 42% do not. Whether internal or external, respondents are unclear on the benefits which cloud can bring them, and seem unable to link the technical advantages of cloud (on-demand self-service, broad network access, rapid elasticity and metered service) with the business benefits they provide – cost savings, better ROI, increased availability, ability to deploy new services more quickly. Interestingly, metered service – a key selling point of the external cloud model - is only seen as an advantage by 22% of respondents.

Security and management the biggest inhibitors

When looking at the drawbacks of cloud, management (48%) and security (36%) are seen as the biggest inhibitors. Adding to this, 68% of respondents do not feel that they have adequate in-house capabilities to deliver a cloud infrastructure at present.

Colin Bannister continued “Forward thinking companies are today beginning to understand how to dynamically manage virtualised environments to deliver infrastructure as a service, giving greater flexibility and the ability to provision computing power on demand. This creates the internal cloud – ‘unleashing the power of virtualization.’”

“It is up to the IT industry not only to make the case for cloud, but to make the case for each of the technologies which support it, so that companies have a smooth and successful transition.”

Further information
- To view the survey report and further information about the Unleashing the Power of Virtualization 2010 please visit: http://www.ca.com/gb/mediaresourcecentre
- Find our more about CAs Solutions for Cloud Computing: http://ca.com/cloud
- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ca_cloud
- The CA Cloud Storm Chasers Blog
- CA Cloud Academy: www.thecloudacademy.com

Survey methodology
The survey was carried out by Vanson Bourne. 550 enterprises were surveyed in 14 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

About CA
CA (NASDAQ: CA), the world's leading independent IT management software company, helps customers optimize IT for better business results. CA's Enterprise IT Management solutions for mainframe and distributed computing enable Lean IT—empowering organizations to more effectively govern, manage and secure their IT operations. For more information, visit www.ca.com.
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