Title inspired by ‘Hypocrisy’

I’m not really sure if this is of value to anyone, but just in case i thought I’ll publish the results of a survey i ran during 2009. Part of my MSc dissertation (Server virtualization security and its impact on compliance) was based on the results of this survey and i want to once more thank everyone who participated. The information below is pretty much a copy of the dissertation appendix, so no commentary or interpretation of the result.

“In the course of this dissertation I’ve conducted a survey with the title ‘Server virtualization security and compliance’ consisting of 15 questions specifically crafted to address the key questions of my research. To encourage the target group to participate the survey was broken down in multiple pages with a logical sequence of questions building on to each other. None of the questions were mandatory to answer to minimize the loss of respondents due to technical frustration. The survey ran for approximately 6 weeks and had been advertised to selected communities. The target groups have been carefully selected to ensure relevance and quality of the feedback.

Participation was requested through postings to the following groups 

• Certified Information Systems Security Professionals (Linkedin.com)
• Information Systems Security Association (LinkedIn.com)
• virtualization.info Vanguards (LinkedIn.com)
• NT System Admin (Sunbeltsoftware.com)
• VMWare Communities (VMWare.com)

Special thanks to Stu Sjouwerman and Alessandro Perilli for their support.

As expected with an uncomfortable topic like compliance the response rate was quite low. After 6 weeks roughly 60 participants filled out the survey in parts or in full. The feedback was nevertheless highly valuable considering that the respondents have in real world insider knowledge about the subject.

The following pages contain the results for all questions of the survey.”