The challenges of cloud data management
Organizations of all sizes continue to rapidly expand their use of cloud platforms. Gartner forecasts that investments in cloud systems will grow by 23% in 2021 to a total of $332.3 billion. They also predict a 19.6% growth in 2022.
In addition to cloud spend, the amount of data in the cloud continues to grow at an unbridled rate along with new cloud management challenges to keep pace. An IDC Global DataSphere and StorageSphere forecast states “The amount of digital data created over the next five years will be greater than twice the amount of data created since the advent of digital storage.”
IT departments are facing a growing challenge to stay abreast of advancements in cloud technologies, provide day-to-day support for increasingly complex systems, and adhere to ever-changing regulatory requirements. In addition, they must ensure the systems they support are able to scale to meet performance objectives and are secured against unauthorized access.
A common goal for all organizations is to quickly identify and leverage data that delivers real business value. But statistics show that instead of focusing on strategic business objectives, many IT shops are now drowning in their own data. Flexera is an industry-leading cloud management company that is known for its yearly “State of the Cloud Report.” In its 10th year of publication, the 2021 report provides the survey results from 750 cloud decision-makers and users. The 2021 report shows that, regardless of the organization’s level of experience, data governance is one of the top four cloud challenges, with compliance being one of the most pressing issues for some shops.
Of the Flexera survey respondents that described their organizations’ cloud skill levels as advanced, 75% reported regulatory compliance was one of the most challenging aspects of cloud platforms. Much like data security, adhering to regulatory compliance frameworks is a shared responsibility between the customer and cloud provider. Larger cloud vendors will provide third-party auditor compliance reports and attestations for the regulatory frameworks they support. It will be up to each organization to read the documentation and ensure the contents meet specific compliance needs. Most leading platforms will also provide tools to help clients configure identity and access management, secure and monitor their data, and implement audit trails. But the responsibility for ensuring the tools’ configuration and usage meet the framework’s control objectives relies solely with the customer. A couple of recommendations that will help include the following: Shared responsibility will vary by vendor, type of cloud service (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and implementation. The organization is ultimately responsible for meeting all of the compliance frameworks’ control objectives — not the cloud provider.
