Enterprises embrace cloud but struggle to assert security & control

While enterprises worldwide are looking to multi-cloud strategies for digital transformation and IT efficiency, security challenges and lack of multi-cloud expertise continue to frustrate IT professionals.

A recent study from the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network and A10 Networks quizzed 127 IT professionals worldwide about what they find the most challenging.

The survey revealed that 87% expect to increase their reliance on either public or private cloud over the next two years; while two-thirds have deployed enterprise applications across two or more public cloud.

However, the moves haven't gone as smoothly as expected – only 11% of respondents said their companies have been 'extremely successful' in realising what multi-cloud can do for their organisation.

"Multi-cloud is the de facto new standard for today's software- and data-driven enterprise," comments BPI Network head of thought leadership and research, Dave Murray. "

"Our study makes clear that IT and business leaders are struggling with how to reassert the same levels of management, security, visibility and control that existed in past IT models. Particularly in security, our respondents are currently assessing and mapping the platforms, solutions and policies they will need to realise the benefits and reduce the risks associated of their multi-cloud environments.

According to the survey, The top-four benefits for multi-cloud include: Redundancy and disaster recovery (59%); Cost optimisation (52%); Performance optimisation (45%); and using the best cloud environment for specific workloads (35%)

The top four drivers for multi-cloud include: The desire to improve efficiency and cut costs (48%); The need to move applications and data closer to users (38%); Safeguards against single-vendor cloud failures (36%); and the ability to burst applications and services during peak demand (29%).

Furthermore, security tops the IT to-do list, along with a long list of other challenges in managing multi-cloud compute environments.

The top four requirements for improving multi-cloud security and performance are: Centralised visibility and analytics into security and performance (58%); Automated tools to speed response times and reduce costs (55%); Centralised management from a single point of control (52%); and greater security scale and performance to handle increased traffic (36%).

The top-four challenges for multi-cloud include: Ensuring security across all clouds, networks, applications and data (59%); Acquiring the necessary skills and expertise (40%); Dealing with increased management complexity (34%); and achieving centralised visibility and management across clouds (32%).

More key survey findings:

• 35% have already moved half or more of their enterprise applications into the cloud
• Improving multi-cloud security is seen as their most critical challenge, followed by a lack of multi-cloud talent and expertise, the need for centralised visibility, and the capacity to more effectively manage application and infrastructure complexity.

Statistics are taken from the BPI Network - A10 Networks' Mapping The Multi-Cloud Enterprise study.