Stats in the IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study 2014, show that cloud investments have increased by 19 per cent in enterprises and that in 2015 cloud will account for almost a quarter (24 per cent) of IT budgets – with the highest percentage going to software-as-a-service (SaaS) models.

Despite this overwhelming momentum there remains some fear that continues to hold some businesses back from taking advantage of the cost, efficiency, flexibility and performance benefits that can be achieved by using the cloud.

Lets focus on the main arguments.

The cloud isn’t stable – what happens to my business when it goes down and is unavailable?

The uptime stats for most cloud service providers would put those of on-premise corporate IT systems to shame. Whilst 100% uptime is unrealistic, four nines (99.99%) is normal with some stretching to five nines (99.999%) which equates to just over 5 mins down time per year).

The cloud isn’t secure and my data is on the internet

This is perhaps the most often used reason to resist using the cloud. Gartner, state: “To date, there have been very few security breaches in the public cloud — most breaches continue to involve on-premises data centre environments. While cloud providers should have to demonstrate their capabilities, once they have done so there is no reason to believe their offerings cannot be secure.”

The cloud is just about saving money

Yes, you can reduce cost by using the cloud. This is by removing upfront and capital costs from your business. No more buying physical hardware – servers, storage, etc. The saving are worthwhile but most businesses more value the flexibility to scale up and down as their business required. By deploying new applications and systems much faster businesses can better respond to rapidly changing business requirements.