IT Departments Remain Unconvinced by the Cloud and Have Concerns about the Perimeter

Cloud computing poses issues for IT departments as concerns linger about privacy and security issues, according to recent reports from technology firms.

Worries about privacy and security are barriers to cloud adoption by many organizations, the reports said.

“Cloud computing makes the argument for protecting data, rather than the perimeter, stronger,” SafeNet (News - Alert) said in a statement cited by IDG News Service.

In addition, a divide exists between the business community and IT on cloud computing, according to a report (“Cloud and the Future of Business; From Costs to Innovation”) from Accenture (News - Alert) and the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Outsourcing Unit.

Rob Elliss, regional vice president of sales, Northern Europe, at SafeNet, told ComputerWorld, “You can't protect the perimeter. When it [the data] is created, at rest, in transit, the data has to be protected. The cloud merely explodes the perimeter beyond your own data centre."

In other recent news about SafeNet, TMCnet reports that SafeNet has announced SafeNet Authentication Manager (SAM) 8.0. The company says it is the first “unified enterprise platform that combines strong authentication and identity federation,” TMCnet reported.

SAM gives users an authentication infrastructure which keeps up-to-date with the changing needs of business, and it has support for SafeNet’s One-Time Password (OTP), software and certificate-based (PKI) authenticators, TMCnet said.

It becomes a key part of SafeNet’s Trusted Cloud Fabric, TMCnet adds.

In addition, SafeNet has introduced two new migration bundles to offer an alternative for authentication solutions, TMCnet said.

Businesses can create and protect information through SafeNet's authentication solutions in a secure environment, TMCnet said.

And in news about Accenture, TMCnet reports that the Accenture Foundations have awarded Enablis an additional grant of $1.25 million to help the organization support entrepreneurs in Argentina.

Accenture's Skills to Succeed wants to give some 250,000 people worldwide the skills to get a job or build a business by 2015, TMCnet said.