Are enterprises ready for the cloud? The quick answer is probably not. According to James Staten, VP, Principal Analyst for Forrester, less than 10% of enterprises are ready for their own cloud environments today. But this shouldn't come as a surprise. There are many obstacles that stand in the way of enterprise cloud adoption including security and compliance concerns, sustaining legacy applications and, as James points out, a general lack of experience. But these obstacles aren't holding companies back from dipping their toes in cloud.  

In this Cloud Luminaries video, Staten offers advice on how to get started with cloud computing to become more agile, scalable and improve time-to-market.  I found his opinion on one of the top concerns among enterprises--namely, security-very interesting. 

So, should organizations be concerned about cloud security?

Staten points out that enterprises should approach cloud "with a degree of caution," but reiterates that the cloud is not inherently more or less secure just because it is the cloud. He says, "in fact, [in] many cases we find that clouds operate in a more secure fashion than typical enterprises do. The key is you have to understand what your remaining responsibility is beyond the basic security that that cloud provider gives to you." Forrester calls this the "uneven handshake."

Watch this short video to hear more about this topic, and visit the Cloud Luminaries site for more content and insights from other thought leaders in cloud.