As organisational data becomes more valuable and threats constantly evolve, businesses must ask themselves if they are doing enough when it comes to keeping their data safe. The challenges are clear: organisations are creating vast quantities of business-critical data which is being spread across multiple different environments and creating more risk.
Meanwhile, IT staff are stretched thin due to a global talent shortage, and simply cannot take on more work. The digital talent shortage has been particularly challenging for UK businesses. In fact, recent research shows that as tech job vacancies continue to skyrocket, two-thirds of digital leaders in the UK are unable to keep pace with change because of the talent they need.
These IT teams are all too often running from behind to ensure this data is protected and managed efficiently. However, to keep their business resilient and on pace with growth, they must advance their core functions of data management and protection. To do so, IT teams need to ask themselves the million dollar question: how do we streamline data management to increase efficiencies, while also ensuring data is secure from threats?
Businesses need a single solution that can meet these requirements. An approach that is grounded on the simplicity, scalability and security of the cloud is the only way to deliver on such a promise.
A Modern Approach
A cloud-first approach enables organisations to maximise their data’s value to the fullest extent, while also addressing the core challenges every business is facing. IDC predicts that by 2025, 55 percent of organisations will have migrated their data protection systems to a cloud-centric model to ultimately simplify management and protection.
So, what is a data resiliency cloud? A data resiliency cloud is a modern platform that delivers automated capabilities designed to keep a business protected and efficient. By leveraging the elasticity and efficiency of the cloud, organisations can take advantage of unlimited resources and additional layers of protection that will enhance their cyber and data resiliency.
The Key Pillars
This modern solution operates off a Centralised Model, which allows an enterprise to bring all data related operations into one single platform. A centralised system will break down silos and integrate data management functions automatically without IT oversight. This convergence of management into one interface, no matter where data is located, makes the task of data protection, security and above all resiliency, incredibly less resource-intensive.
Next, as organisations migrate their business processes to multiple-cloud environments, they must be able to protect all of their data within this centralised platform. A Comprehensive Control Pane that supports multiple clouds will enable this functionality and help businesses regain control of their data environments. A multi-cloud control pane is built off three principles including no infrastructure, global policies, and self-service with central oversight. Without infrastructure, businesses can run and scale in any environment, and with global policies, they will have oversight across all environments. A self-service functionality will also help IT teams delegate responsibility to certain application owners, while retaining centralised control.
While a multi-cloud control pane will provide central oversight, organisational data must be protected. As cyber threats and ransomware attacks continue to advance at an alarming rate, organisations increasingly need to not only prevent threats to their data but bounce back with minimal disruption when they eventually experience the inevitable attack.
A Zero Trust Approach, the third pillar, will ensure that different layers of the security stack work independently from each other. This mindset is about always assuming that layers above and below one another are already compromised. It’s about never trusting, and always verifying.
Zero trust is based on a verification process which should treat every access attempt as if it originates from an untrusted source. Access to an organisation’s network should only be granted after an identity has been authenticated through single sign-on (SSO) and/or multi-factor authentication (MFA). This is critical because it will help prevent bad actors, whether internal or external, from being able to gain access to an organisation’s network.
In addition, a cloud-native solution that enables cyber and operational resilience backs up data regularly, while keeping it air-gapped and immutable, and always available to restore. It also helps organisations orchestrate their recovery from an attack with minimal downtime and disruption.
A data resiliency cloud is fully Autonomous. Automated capabilities can detect threats and keep a business’ protection environment up to date on security updates, security patches and best practices without depending on any people. This eliminates daily management and allows IT teams to focus on larger priority tasks that add greater value to the business. In addition, an autonomous engine is able to provide insights into unusual activity which helps businesses to rapidly detect, fight and mitigate internal and external threats.
Last, these pillars deliver a Simplified Cloud Experience, which means that the solution is 100% SaaS and designed for the cloud – not just ported. With SaaS there is no hardware to invest in or manage. Organisations can reduce costs by never needing to buy or install software applications themselves, only paying for what they actually use.
A true cloud experience provides organisations with a level of self-service. This means that when IT teams need to perform daily tasks such as creating a backup copy or running a restore, they do not need to wait for a central team and the task can be completed almost instantaneously. Of course, with self-service there should always be some form of central oversight to provide a safety net for the organisation and its data.
Choosing What is Right for the Business
Data environments are only becoming more complex, and cyber threats are more severe and destructive. Companies need to move past legacy approaches to achieve resiliency, and leveraging the cloud is a great place to start. A data resiliency cloud provides organisations with unlimited resources to protect their data. When such a system has all five pillars: aCentralised Model, aComprehensive Control Pane, a Zero-Trust Approach, Fully Automated Operations, and a Cloud-Native Experience – organisations will be able to remain resilient no matter what gets thrown their way in the future.