A global survey of 7,200 C-suite executives by the IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics revealed that the cloud market has entered the hybrid, multi-cloud era and concerns around vendor lock-in, security, compliance and interoperability remain paramount.
Case in point, only one per cent of Singapore respondents reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021, down from 21%. This implies that the hybrid cloud is now the dominant IT architecture in Singapore.
The 2021 Cost of a Data Breach report by the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by IBM noted that cyber threats are at an all-time high:
- Infrastructure complexity is creating cracked doors that cybercriminals are exploiting.
- In Singapore, 78% respondents did indicate improving cybersecurity and reducing security risks are among their largest business and IT investments.
- 71% respondents in Singapore said data security being embedded throughout the cloud architecture is important or extremely important, in most cases, to successful digital initiatives.
Singapore companies are denouncing vendor lock-in with:
- Nearly 80% of respondents saying workloads being completely portable with no vendor lock-in is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives.
- Nearly 78% of respondents said vendor lock-in is a significant obstacle to improving business performance in most or all parts of their cloud estate.
Public cloud adoption is evolving towards industry clouds. Nearly 70% of global respondents in the government and financial services sectors cited industry-related regulatory compliance as an obstacle to the business performance of their cloud estate.
According to Howard Boville, head of IBM Cloud Platform, companies at the beginning of their cloud journey dabbled with several different clouds. This created complexity and disconnected piece parts, potentially opening them up to major security threats.
“Today’s findings reiterate that security, governance and compliance tools must run across multiple clouds and be embedded throughout hybrid cloud architectures from the onset for digital transformations to be successful,” he concluded.
Martin Chee, general manager, IBM ASEAN, added that enterprise cloud adoption has moved on from reducing the cost of data centre operations to putting cloud-native capabilities at the core of innovating how their business works.
“Our research proves hybrid cloud is the winning architecture. The ‘one vendor approach’ to cloud is dead,” he added.
The study revealed that enterprises need to assess how they use the cloud in terms of adoption, velocity, migration, speed, and cost savings opportunities. It recommended:
Focus on security and privacy
Determine where your critical workloads reside and scrutinize who and what has access to them. Regularly test that security controls and privacy policies are being adhered to, but also that improperly configured assets and software vulnerabilities are being promptly addressed.
Ask which workloads should move to the cloud
Take inventory of the IT environment to successfully determine which workloads and applications will yield the most value in the cloud and which are better suited to stay on-premises.
Make data work for you
Analyse workloads using AI-driven tools and best practices to determine where and how to put them in the right place for the right reason.
Set a tactical approach
Address the technology trade-offs, such as selecting the best approach to modernize specific applications and manage important issues like security, governance, and disaster recovery.
Determine the right team
Put a cross-disciplinary team of people to work rethinking how your enterprise creates value for its customers.
