Chief executive officers, chief financial officers and chief operating officers are stopping their organizations from moving to cloud computing mostly out of concern for data privacy and security, according to a report by the IT Governance Institute. The ITGI report is based on a survey of 834 business and IT executives in 21 countries.   

The ITGI's 2011 Global Status Report on the Governance of Enterprise IT found that 40 percent of the executives queried are not planning to use cloud services even for non-mission-critical activities. Nearly half (49.6 percent) of them cited worries about data privacy, while 47.2 percent cited security concerns, and 42.7 percent cited reliability concerns. Executives in large enterprises are more concerned about these risks than their counterparts in small businesses.

Investment in legacy infrastructure is another reason not to move to the cloud, according to 35 percent of the executives polled. The report recommends that IT governance could play a role in reducing this impediment because effective governance can help ensure that risks are properly mitigated and the value of legacy investments are accurately assessed when it comes time to consider moving to cloud services.

"Enterprises will need to plan which and how legacy infrastructure investments should be managed and retired over time. These are complex decisions that require the involvement of many different stakeholders from different areas of the business," the report reads. "Having a clear decision model that delineates the responsibilities and accountabilities of these stakeholders could be a significant advantage."

For more:
- see the 2011 Global Status Report on the Governance of Enterprise IT (.pdf)

Related Articles:
Using the cloud to dodge IT controls
Research projects take broader look at cloud challenges
Five dilemmas in cloud computing