Study reveals range of cloud computing benefits

Monday, December 19, 2011

A recent study conducted by InformationWeek Reports indicated that more companies are considering adopting cloud computing for their business continuity and disaster recovery needs.

Of the more than 400 IT professionals polled, 23 percent revealed their businesses have incorporated cloud computing services into their continuity and recovery plans. An additional 28 percent indicated they plan to adopt these types of services in the next two years.

"Highly publicized outages spook conservative IT teams, and heavy use of virtualization makes it easier to add redundancy at a branch office or secondary data center," said InformationWeek's content director Lorna Garey. "But used judiciously, service providers can add value - an example is backing up mobile devices."

The study also said nearly 50 percent of respondents currently using or planning to use cloud computing for their mission-critical data needs believe it will reduce their disaster recovery time.

Cloud computing offers other advantages aside from enhanced continuity and recovery capabilities. Independent research firm TNS recently conducted a study of 3,645 cloud computing users and found that 33 percent noted the technology's ability to support mobile workers as their top reason for adopting the services.