Overcoming the Barriers to Enterprise Cloud Adoption within Nigerian Consumer Constituency

The impact of globalization coupled with the pressure by recent economic downturn have stirred increased customer outlook on availability, scalability and efficiency to enterprise information technology (IT) solutions. The increasing interest of a broad based business leaders and organisations centre on how best cloud computing can contain these requirements to reduce or eliminate the huge capital outlay for infrastructure ownership, increase efficiency, ensure higher returns on investment (ROI), dynamic provisioning and utility – such as pay-as-use services. However, the slow adoption of cloud computing by many organizations such as those with high business economic drives and those with very sensitive security concerns raises huge concerns. A number of these enterprises along with some information security professionals have expressed fear of the cloud, stating their unflinching consciousness on security and privacy issues associated with this new computing platform for the next generation of the Internet. Thus, this research paper analyses the level and nature of cloud service adoption and deployment among IT practitioners and organizations in Nigeria. It further identified the various barriers (security, privacy and forensic issues) generating fear and inhibiting the full adoption and deployment of this new IT paradigm. The methodology takes a quantitative approach and the results of which analysis were discussed and interpreted in relation to the key issues of cloud service adoption and deployment to achieve the research aim of the paper. The results of the research survey conducted provisions the research outcomes which attempts to demystify cloud computing and most associated risks in the virtualized cloud environment by pining the issues of outsourcing data and its control via external data storage as top ranking among others. Further, Proper implementation of security, privacy and forensic measures were advocated to be seen not just as the cloud providers’ sole concern, but the responsibilities of all consumers of the services. Finally, arguments to back-up the need for progression in this new paradigm shift were elucidated.