Cloud strategy and data security: report

Photo credit: Aptum

Aptum announced part two of its annual Cloud Impact Report 2022, Solving the Data Security Equation. The report examines hybrid cloud environments and their implications on security, data governance, compliance, and disaster recovery. It finds that while companies are convinced of the value of cloud computing, its drivers have evolved.

Looking at the value of cloud, 91 per cent of respondents consider cloud computing to be essential for data management, while 54 per cent believe cloud transformation has had a positive impact on data governance.

Financial considerations have traditionally been a common driver, the study shows a shift in focus for many organizations, especially as security concerns evolve: 50 per cent of respondents cited efficiency as the top motivator for cloud investments, increased security is the second with 48 per cent citing it as a key factor. Resilience is a primary driver of cloud computing investments for 40 per cent of companies.

During the pandemic, organizations increased cloud deployments to support increased remote work, enhance business resilience and enable flexibility. As a result, businesses moved toward a hybrid model, 86 per cent of respondents said their organization has adopted a hybrid or multi cloud approach to cloud deployments.

Moving to hybrid has meant their environments have become complex as data and workloads are now located across a range of cloud and non-cloud infrastructures. Many are grappling with complexities traditionally associated with hybrid cloud environments, such as data and workloads being located across a range of cloud and non-cloud infrastructures.

Of those respondents, top challenges cited include control and governance of access to cloud environments at 90 per cent; a clear mechanism to detect and respond to security threats across all environments at 90 per cent; and the ability to meet requirements of compliance audits at 90 per cent.

The study showed that managing security effectively is no longer just an issue of securing data within each environment; data must also be secured as it moves between locations.

“Businesses use different environments for different purposes. A platform for application development and another as a production site, for example. That’s where you achieve the benefits of a hybrid cloud environment,” said Marvin Sharp, Vice-President of Product Strategy, Aptum. “But moving workloads between the two environments puts data at risk. Therefore, in a hybrid work environment, organizations need to consider securing point A and point B, as well as the movement of data between them.”

Disaster recovery is amongst the top reasons organizations are continuing to move data to the cloud, with 37 per cent of respondents citing improved data backup services and disaster recovery as a driver.

The study’s results reveal that 20 per cent of organizations surveyed have a holistic cloud strategy in place. The other 80 per cent have a fragmented approach to cloud transformation.

The report can be found here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/2022-cis-part-2/.