LONDON, UK. 24  February 2010: A survey conducted by data management and storage vendor NetApp has revealed that overwhelmingly virtualisation (70%) is the top priority for IT investment in 2010, and that awareness of cloud computing is on the rise. The majority of IT professionals (74%) now claim to have partial understanding of cloud storage, placing the technology firmly on the IT and business agenda.

The survey of more than 100 professionals revealed cost savings (22%) and a pay-as-you-go model (23%) as the most appealing benefits of cloud storage, as well as perceived security (29%) and integration (22%) issues as the biggest barriers to adoption.

“What this tells us is that cloud is here and top of mind for businesses,” said Dave Allen, UK MD, NetApp. “Just as virtualisation has gone full circle from an abstract concept to a technology that more than 70% of IT professionals plan to implement this year, we will see cloud follow the same pattern over 2010. The basic knowledge foundations have been laid, the next step is for businesses to overcome barriers and understand exactly how cloud could work for specific data and applications.

“As server and storage virtualisation gains speed and momentum over 2010, we can expect to see more businesses also virtualise the network and move further towards a unified computing model. From a unified core, IT professionals will find it to easier to launch both internal and external clouds that deliver a lower cost of ownership and save the business money.

“At NetApp, our goal is to continue to build strong alliances with technology leaders to deliver customers fully unified solutions from the start,” he said.
In January, NetApp launched a Secure Multi-tenancy Design Architecture for the cloud as well as an open design architecture to help customers quickly build unified, virtualised infrastructures.