Research commissioned by Veritas Technologies has revealed that the vast majority of enterprises
are failing to stay within their cloud budgets. In fact, 94% of respondents
reported that their organization has incurred higher costs than originally
anticipated when using a public cloud service provider (CSP), and are
overspending by an average of 43%.
The Securing
Your Enterprise in a Multi-Cloud Environment Report, which surveyed
1,500 technology and IT decision-makers across 12 countries, showed that
enterprises clearly see value in the public cloud, as 100% of respondents
agreed that using CSPs and their tools provided benefits to the organization,
such as flexibility, scalability and mobility.
However, many organizations are planning their cloud budgets
without fully understanding what they are ultimately going to need to pay for.
For example, nearly all (99%) respondents believed that the CSP would be
responsible for protecting some of their assets in the cloud. This is rarely
the case as most CSPs make it very clear that, while they are on the line to
ensure the resiliency *of* the cloud, their customers shoulder the
responsibility for the data and applications *in* the cloud.
This is an important distinction since the research
highlighted that data in the cloud is a highly attractive target for
cybercriminals. 89% of respondents told Veritas that their organizations had
experienced a ransomware attack on their cloud environments.
The misunderstanding around the cloud responsibility model
means that many companies have not factored in the requirement for third-party
data protection and are leaving their critical data vulnerable to these
ransomware attacks - and other data-loss incidents. More than half (53%) of
organizations, the research shows, have lost data as a result of relying solely
on the backup tools built into solutions by their CSPs. And, 76% of respondents
agreed that current offerings from CSPs fall short of their organization's
security needs.
As a result, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that the research
showed that unforeseen data protection needs were the most common source of
unexpected cloud costs, with 40% citing backup and recovery as the leading area
of overspend.
Sonya Duffin, Data Control Evangelist at Veritas
said: "Our research highlights some of the huge benefits that organizations are
getting from the cloud - but it also shines a light on the need for a better
understanding of what purchasers are actually buying from their CSPs. No one is
going to budget for something that they think they're getting for free. But, by
the time that IT leaders realize that there's something that they've
overlooked, it's common that they've already lost data. Therefore, if they want
to avoid asking for additional budget to cover a project overspend, it's
critical to factor in data protection and take back control, right from the
start."