Inflated expectations in the security cloud
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Cloud, Business, Data Protection, Blog, Security on
I don’t think that anyone with an eye on the future could seriously dismiss ‘the cloud’ as not being right up there as far as game-changing business technologies go. However, that doesn’t mean that the services are not suffering at the hands of over-exposure and hype right now.
IT powerhouses have, it would seem, been happy to jump aboard the cloud hype bandwagon in what some have described as being an all puff and no trousers move.
While I would not dream of suggesting for one moment that cloud-based security services do not have the potential to be really important players as far as the next few years are concerned, I would have to agree with the Gartner overview that they have yet to deliver on customer expectation. I’m thinking in terms of delivering managed firewalls to the enterprise, distributed denial of service protection services and antivirus for example.
According to the latest Security Related Hype Cycles report, in the cloud security services have hit an inflated expectations peak this year. Ray Wagner, a Managing VP at Gartner, explains that in the cloud security services made the top of the list courtesy of a combination of limited successful implementations coupled with unrealistic expectations. “Cloud security providers must deliver on customer expectations for the effectiveness, scalability and cost savings of performing security filtering in the cloud or as a service” Wagner says, concluding that “the small or midsize business is an appealing initial market for these delivery models at lower price points, and we expect that the technology will become mainstream within two to five years”.
Why should anyone care about whether cloud security is on this list? Well, looking back it would appear that those technologies that do rise to a ‘peak of inflated expectations’ level on the hype cycle list tend to pretty soon end up reaching a tipping point whereby they are left on the wrong side of that hype peak, and users are left disillusioned with the technology.
In other words, maybe it is time to stop with all the ‘next big thing’ hyperbole from the cloud service providers and instead time to start giving the technology a chance to talk for itself. Do that and corporate users might just discover that there actually is something to be said for consolidating premises-based security into a cloud-based delivery model after all. Surely the cloud has, by now, gone past the ‘too early in the development cycle to be worth evaluating’ stage even if it has not, at least when we are talking security services, reached a stage of maturity where it can be said to be capable of delivering competitive advantage.
As my late father used to say “don’t jump in with both feet unless you’ve measured the water depth first” and, as usual, he wasn’t wrong.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Pingback by - September 21, 2009 on 3:04 pm
[…] IT PRO: Blogs: Davey Winder: Inflated expectations in the security cloud www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2009/09/21/inflated-expectations-in-the-security-cloud – view page – cached , I don’t think that anyone with an eye on the future could seriously dismiss ‘the cloud’ as not being right up there as far as game-changing business — From the page […]
Comment by - October 9, 2009 on 7:53 am
i like
Comment by - November 4, 2009 on 10:11 am
Thanks for the post.
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 3:54 am
will smith and jada pinkett smith net worth…
[…]have a single of each and every pair” or even “I feel not currently currently being my mouth region guard, I am particular that our canine […]…
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 7:55 am
greenpeace indonesia forests…
[…]giving myself the likelihood to discover and seize new chances […]…
Make a comment
Tag cloud
Archives
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Most commented posts
- 80 percent of viruses love Windows 7
149 comments
- Has Microsoft gone mental?
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7?
- Cuil frozen out: market share drops to next to nothing
- Xbox 360 FAIL
- The 24GB RAM Desktop is born
- Use old version of Windows instead of Linux, says teacher
- Microsoft reveals time-based licensing model
- Windows XP: the invincible OS
- Nexus Two - The Next Generation
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Why ecommerce fails (100%)
- Google Chrome stands alone at PWN2OWN (100%)
- Betting on Hubdub technology (100%)
- Has Google gone insane as GMail goes back to beta? (100%)
- Chinese whispers as government implicated in UK hack attacks (100%)
- Crimeware toolkit targets 10,000 trusted sites (100%)
- Black Hat risk to migrating VMs (100%)
- Tough on cyber crime, tough on the causes of cyber crime (100%)
- Firefox 3, Beta 4, Enhancements 900, Tested 5 (100%)
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7? (100%)
