FEATURE
best to control, govern and manage
the resulting environment. This often
proves more difficult than anticipated,
as shown in the results of the survey.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%)
said that ensuring security across all
clouds, networks, applications and data
was the top challenge of multi-cloud IT,
which is good news, as it is top-of-mind,
even if the solutions are not ubiquitous
today. Management skills and expertise
(37%) and centralised visibility and
management (33%) were also cited –
both key concerns for effective multicloud
security.
Essential security capabilities
and practices
As IT, security teams, and business
leaders have worked to close the
security gap in their multi-cloud
environment, a clear sense of the most
relevant technologies to leverage is
needed. In the BPI report, a majority
named centralised visibility and
analytics into security and performance
(56%), automated tools to speed
response times and reduce costs
(54%), and centralised management
from a single point of control (50%)
as the top capabilities for improving
multi-cloud security, reliability and
performance. With the volume of
digital business data and transactions
constantly rising, 38% of respondents
also pointed to the need for more
scalable, higher-performing security
solutions. This will only be exacerbated
over time, especially with the rise of IoT
and the emerging 5G connectivity.
Looking at the most important
considerations in protecting the
security and reliability of multicloud
environments, 62% of survey
respondents agreed on the importance
of centralised authentication or preauthentication
to help maintain effective
control over the users, admins and
The evolution
to multi-cloud
environments
typically focuses on
the business and IT
factors driving it.
systems allowed to access various
resources across multiple clouds.
One respondent, Raja Mohan, Senior
Strategic Architect for Cloud and
Platform Services at Franklin Templeton,
explained the reasoning behind this
emphasis: “How do we deliver highly
secure applications in a way in which
it doesn’t matter where they reside?
How do we provide seamless, secure
services? That’s the goal.”
38 Issue 26 | www.intelligentciso.com