Public cloud a 'non-starter'

Concerns over security and compliance have made public clouds a non-starter for many organisations, reports Tech Republic.

By contrast, private clouds represent an opportunity in terms of security. According to the 2010 Independent Oracle User Group Data Security Survey, half the respondents indicated they did not know all the databases in their organisation that contained sensitive information.

Private cloud database consolidation allows organisations to know where all their sensitive data resides, focus their security initiatives, and drive down the overall cost of safeguarding their data and addressing regulatory compliance.

Most companies are not prepared with adequate business continuity and disaster recovery plans, states Multi Channel Merchant

This reality was driven home in a recent study conducted by CDW, a technology services provider. CDW surveyed 200 IT managers at medium and large enterprises, across a wide range of industries which have experienced a significant network disruption in the past 12 months.

The top causes of business disruption were loss of power, hardware failure and loss of telecom services, in that order.

Mimecast, an e-mail management company that targets businesses, is among the first to sell e-mail archiving, retrieval, and security as a cloud-based service, storing client data in offsite servers rather than in a client's own machines, says Bloomberg.

Founded in 2002 in London, nearly 1 000 US companies have signed on since Mimecast's 2008 foray into the US, according to Peter Bauer, the company's co-founder and chief executive.

He says the company's revenue almost quadrupled from $5.5 million in 2008, to $21.2 million in 2010.