HyTrust Cloud Survey Finds Enterprises Are Rapidly Embracing Multi-Cloud Strategies, Slacking on Data Encryption and Security

September 21, 2016 Off By David
Object Storage
Grazed from HyTrust

Today, HyTrust Inc., a leading workload security provider, announced findings from its latest cloud survey conducted at VMworld 2016, in Las Vegas. The survey of over 400 respondents assesses the current use of public cloud vendors, the industry shift to utilizing a multi-cloud model, and how enterprises are protecting data in these cloud environments.

The results, which highlight enterprise preferences for key public cloud providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and VMware’s vCloud Air, also found that more than a quarter of organizations deploying data, applications, and workloads to public cloud ecosystems are not using any form of encryption, leaving sensitive data vulnerable to breaches. As we see more and more enterprises move critical data to multiple clouds, the lack of data security and encryption is not only counter to security being named the leading concern, but it may become even more of an issue with broader negative consequences.

The Move to Multi-Cloud Environments
The momentum that multi-cloud adoption has seen over the past year is showing no signs of slowing down and as illustrated in the survey findings, a majority of respondents are planning to move to a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environment.

Key findings include:

  • Approximately 60% of organizations plan to move to a multi-cloud model
  • 64% of respondents indicated that their pursuit of a hybrid cloud strategy will be multi-cloud and multi-vendor
  • Nearly 26% of organizations are using AWS and 21% Microsoft Azure
  • 30% of those organizations using two or more clouds prefer the AWS and Azure combination
  • Approximately 37% of organizations are deploying data, applications and workloads into three or more public clouds — AWS, Azure and vCloud Air being the leading trifecta of choice

"The way we work is changing and in today’s fast-paced digital business environment, organizations need solutions that offer them the scale and security they need to operate efficiently while providing excellent service to their customers," said Eric Chiu, president and founder, HyTrust. "With a multi-cloud infrastructure, enterprises can achieve this scale, but choosing the correct partners for deployment and implementing a data security and encryption strategy is mission critical."

Securing the Cloud
The findings illustrate that many organizations are unsure of how to manage cloud security. Among the survey respondents, cloud security was the leading factor impeding moving their data to the cloud. Despite security concerns, over a quarter of responding organizations (28%) that are using a public cloud are doing nothing to encrypt the data being stored, leaving them open to breaches or hacks of sensitive organizational data.

Key findings include:

  • 47% of respondents said security was the main concern behind avoiding cloud deployment
  • 44% are encrypting data using the cloud provider solution, 28% are deploying a separate data encryption solution
  • 54% stated that their old approaches to security would not work for future cloud deployments
  • 28% are doing nothing to encrypt data being stored in a public cloud

The makeup of respondents for this survey includes representatives from key industries including Government/Military, Financial, Healthcare/Biotech, Insurance, Manufacturing, Transportation/Shipping, and Technology.

For more information, please visit www.hytrust.com and http://www.hytrust.com/cloud-adoption-survey/