A new survey shows that the cloud market in Asia is not immune to concerns about the technology and security issues.

Two out of three Hong Kong respondents (67 percent) of the independent survey commissioned by Rackspace, said data security is the top concern for their senior management, while 51 percent of respondents said a lack of understanding about how cloud works was a top concern.

"If a firm is concerned about security, it can have its data stored in a data center built on its own premises, so they do have to worry about data security," Ajit Melarkode, managing director of Rackspace Asia Pacific says.

Costs of implementation also ranked high with 41 percent of respondents saying that this was a top concern to management.

"These concerns are potential barriers to the full adoption of cloud computing technologies in Hong Kong," says Melarkode, "which underlines the importance of cloud vendors addressing them directly when educating companies in the region about the right ways to get the best out of cloud computing.

"Hybrid cloud solutions, for instance, can provide a way to get both the security and potential compliancy of private cloud and the scalability of public cloud. It's also up to us as a leader in the hybrid cloud space to educate the market," he says.

Melarkode reiterates that when using the cloud option, a user only pays for what he uses and also when he uses it, so everything is within the control of the user.

In total, 82 percent of the minority of Hong Kong respondents who were not currently using cloud stated they were planning to do so. Of these, 51 percent were considering a transition within the next 12 months, and another 45 percent within one to two years.

(HK Edition 11/08/2013 page8)