Data Control is Critical for Success in a Multi-Cloud Future

Data has eclipsed rhodium as the world’s most precious resource in today’s enterprises. The insights data provides drive crucial decisions across the company, from strategy to developing new products, managing workflows, and attracting and retaining customers.

According to the 2020 IDG State of the CIO study, IT and business leaders have made data and business analytics a top investment priority. There would be time and money wasted on unproductive efforts, and companies would fall behind savvy competitors if they did not have data to guide them.

However, data is only useful if organizations can locate what they need when they need it and use it effectively. To do so, enterprises must manage it consistently and ensure that data is always secure and compliant. Many businesses are seeking innovative ways to manage their data as data volumes grow across new applications and services.

Also Read: Strategies to Secure the Multi-cloud Ecosystem

Data Management Challenges

The Internet of Things and edge computing, as well as transactional systems and unstructured sources such as social media, have resulted in an explosion of enterprise data. All of this has been aggravated by remote work technology, which has added heavy loads from rich-media videoconferencing. According to a 2020 report from IDC, the quantity of data created in the next three years will outnumber that created in the previous thirty, reaching 175 zettabytes by 2025.

Every data set necessitates decision-making by IT managers. Organizations must select which data to maintain and how long to preserve it, where to store it, and how to make it searchable. With so many various types of data and users, it can be difficult to find meaningful answers to these queries.

Challenges are precipitated by the lack of a unified architecture, with data stored in disparate formats across the organization and in several public clouds. Data silos are a stumbling block to collaboration at a time when remote work and global outsourcing make it a necessity. They cause management difficulties, raise costs, and introduce possible security risks. Organizations that do not develop better ways to manage their data will quickly lag behind those that do.

Putting the user first

Earlier, compliance and budgetary considerations drove data governance and management decisions. While these issues are still important, the emphasis has shifted. Today, the focus is on what organizations do with data, how they monetize it, and how they utilize it to make better decisions. As a result, firms must concentrate on the user community. And what today’s users require is constant connectivity.

If a customer contacts support, the sales staff must be informed of the issue. If it’s an engineering issue, the engineering maintenance team should be alerted and linked back to sales in case additional customers need to be contacted as well. This means that enterprises will want an automated data stream as well as a standard record locator across all of their databases.

Also Read: Protecting SSH Keys in Multi-Cloud Operations

Managing Security Challenges

As more data passes through more applications, the danger eventually rises. In today’s world, companies must anticipate they will be targeted — they just don’t know when or where. Hackers have also advanced, conducting well-planned, global attacks such as Solar Winds. The blast radius is enormous.

Data backup for disaster recovery has also become more difficult. Previously, backups were performed every night by businesses. Companies nowadays can’t afford to lose a single day’s worth of transactions, so they back up data on a continual basis, increasing risk.

Ransomware attackers that block access to critical data are increasingly targeting backed-up data as well, leaving businesses powerless in the face of an intrusion. So, to be on the safe side, when organizations backup, it is critical to look for and neutralize dangerous malware.