Valtix announced findings from its
2023 Multi-cloud Security Report,
which found that 95% of companies are pushing toward a multi-cloud
environment, but only 58% believe they have the security architecture to
support it. Respondents in the survey of more than 200 U.S. IT leaders
cited complexities, gaps and other challenges between the overall
strategy and the infrastructure they ultimately create.
The survey found that multi-cloud activity continues to rise with 93%
of respondents currently having workloads and data on more than one
cloud. Of those not yet in a multi-cloud environment, a full 94% expect
to be multi-cloud within 12 months. Companies are embracing multi-cloud
twice as fast this year compared to Valtix's year-ago survey. At that
time, only 62% of organizations were multi-cloud, with 84% expecting to
get there within two years.
"Multi-cloud continues as a strategic priority for most organizations
in 2023-yet it also remains a concern for nearly all organizations,"
said Vishal Jain, co-founder and CEO of
Valtix. "Very few companies have the tech, talent and confidence they
need to put in place a comprehensive security infrastructure across
multiple clouds. While many companies are still unintentional in their
cloud choice, leaders are increasingly looking for proactive ways to
leverage multi-cloud to benefit the business."
According to the survey, organizations cited several 'unintentional'
factors that have accelerated their journey to a multi-cloud
environment, including (1) shadow IT (51%), (2) different ISVs that
support different clouds (48%), and (3) mergers and acquisitions (47%).
Even as adoption accelerates, 28% of IT leaders surveyed strongly
believe multi-cloud is a "bad idea," citing issues such as (1) difficult
to consistently secure (38%), lack multi-cloud security
and management tools (35%) and (3) lack of multi-cloud reference
architectures (32%). Only 57% of IT leaders are sure that multi-cloud
security is achievable with current resources and technology, but admit
they need to embrace it anyway, as 95% consider multi-cloud a "strategic
priority" this year.
Other findings:
- Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) fail to define portability standards: As
businesses increasingly leverage CSPs for this cloud transformation, IT
leaders surveyed were not hopeful CSPs will define portability
standards anytime soon. A full 97% of IT leaders believe that CSPs
should help define standards to enable better multi-cloud portability.
However, 58% surveyed believe security standardization in a multi-cloud
environment is a 'myth' and never achievable. Nearly all (90%) of
organizations surveyed evaluate third-party security technology in
addition to the security tools CSPs provide.
- Multi-cloud is a budgetary drain: Managing multiple distinct
security architectures with multi-cloud security is prohibitively
expensive for 86% of organizations.
- The rise of the cloud security architect: The Cloud Security
Architect is growing as a common role with 86% of organizations
currently employing an in-house cloud security architect. Moreover, 89%
of organizations require every cloud project to adhere to a cloud
security reference architecture.
- Cloud security posture management viewed as a commodity: 67%
of IT leaders view CSPM technology provided by the cloud providers as
being critical to their success. Only 53% of organizations are looking
to make a new CSPM technology investment in 2023.
A complimentary copy of the full report can be downloaded at https://valtix.com/lp/2023-multi-cloud-security-report/.