Ytel Partners With Zoho CRM

Ytel has announced its new partnership with Zoho CRM. With over 3,500 employees and six locations worldwide, Zoho is recognized as one of the leading CRMs on the market. Now available to Zoho customers is text messaging functionality through a native integration with message360°. A Ytel solution, message360° is a Cloud Communications API that integrates voice, text, email, and direct mail functionality into any web-based application.

“Zoho was the perfect partner for us because of their customers’ needs,” said Nick Newsom, CEO at Ytel. “Communication is, and will always be, high priority for businesses and we are helping Zoho provide multi-channel capabilities to their customers.”

“We want our customers to get the most out of Zoho, which is why we launched Zoho Marketplace. Here, businesses can choose from a broad range of powerful extensions that increase the capabilities of Zoho products and help businesses be more efficient and productive,” said Raju Vegesna, chief evangelist at Zoho. “Extensions such as message360° connect seamlessly with Zoho products, ensuring a smooth user experience. We are happy to feature message360° on Zoho Marketplace, and believe that it would be valuable for our customers.”

Found in the Zoho marketplace, the message360° extension will allow customers to engage in more personal, two-way conversations through text messaging. Key features of this extension include:

• The ability to send text messages to contacts
• Creation and management of custom text message templates
• History tracking and scheduling of  bulk text message campaigns

Source: CloudStrategyMag

CloudJumper Announces MSP Strategies For Telcos

CloudJumper has announced strategies for managed service providers (MSPs) to help in successfully competing against the growing number of telecommunication firms transitioning to managed services. These strategies include activities as simple as expanding one’s knowledge base to leveraging innovative product/service licensing models that differentiate the organization against new market entrants. With the right mix of business strategies and solutions, established MSPs can enhance their positions for increased market share.

According to a forecast* from independent global analyst firm Ovum, “Telecom service providers will grow their revenues from global services to enterprise customers to more than US$297 billion by 2020. The biggest contribution will come from new strategic ICT services revenues at nearly US$173 billion, which will increase at a CAGR of 9.9% over the period 2015-2020. Telcos overall have taken more than 14% of the global ICT services market in the last couple of years, and should reach more than 18% by 2020.”¹

Many telcos are actively trying to make use of their existing scale and IT savvy to move beyond basic voice and data services in order to begin selling a managed service or growing their portfolio of managed services. While horizontal services such as email, backup, disaster recovery, and security are typically at the top of the adoption pecking order, Software as a Service and Workspaces as a Service² are enabling businesses to benefit from applications previously unaffordable using a cloud-based computing infrastructure that offers the promise of greater efficiency and productivity.

Ubiquitous availability of broadband for business and mobile computing users has provided an opportunity for organizations to change the way communications and productivity are measured. With cloud computing and the maturity of mobile computing infrastructure, businesses are maintaining their move toward a more decentralized operational structure. While this has increased the demand for cloud services, it has also resulted in increased competitive pressure from telecommunication providers that operate their own networks as they move toward managed services.

According to Max Pruger, chief sales officer for CloudJumper, “MSPs are awakening to increasingly intense competition from telco providers. Therefore, they will need to arm themselves with the proper tools and strategies to outmaneuver this growing class of competitors entering the market. As an organization that is focused on supporting MSPs globally, CloudJumper is spotlighting several business strategies and solutions that will help these IT service providers retain and profitably grow their operations.”

Five Strategies for MSPs to Stay Ahead in an Increasingly Competitive Market:

1. Expand your knowledge base: Leverage the network of people you are connected to whose expertise you can draw from, and whose ideas and actions you respect. There are organizations, publications, and social networks focused on the MSP space that are excellent educational resources. Additionally, MSP focused vendors often have significant partner ecosystems that allow knowledge transfers among partners. Capitalize on this and build your own network from these sources.

2. Strengthen the portfolio of offerings with high demand cloud applications: Almost 60% of large and small scale enterprises have deployed some kind managed service as part of their overall IT strategy.3 Among these high demand applications are Software as a Service, Office365, managed communications, remote monitoring, mobile device management, disaster management, managed network security, and Workspaces as a Service.

3. Explore the use of innovative licensing strategies as a competitive differentiator: A great licensing model passes three tests: First, it is easy for the customer to understand. Second, it is aligned to where the customer receives value in the product. Third, it grows with the customer’s usage of that value. MSPs that separate themselves from others in their category using licensing better align to their prospective customers’ needs.

4. Grow profit margins through automation: Selecting technologies with a high degree of automation support the MSPs ability to meet and exceed service level agreements (SLAs) as automation workflows can be implemented to expedite activities and enhance service levels. This means improved operational efficiency across the board.

5. Stay focused: Lack of focus leads to scattered resources. Devoting time, energy, and money to multiple strategies and marketing channels at the same time leads to a reduced ability to execute as well as they otherwise could be. Experts recommend staying focused on the organization’s overall business strategy which is the big picture and ultimate direction and purpose of the organization. This should not change unless there is a major market shift. Next, campaigns and initiatives support the overall strategy and goal so a lack of focus in this area can lead to wasted time and money. Finally, at the tactical level, follow the Pareto Principal (80/20 Rule) which states that 20% of one’s actions and inputs will create 80% of the desired outcome. The key is identifying and focusing on the 20% that is actually achieving the 80% of desired outcomes.

“Both competition and opportunity for our business is strong. Our belief is that a combination of strong operational disciplines with a keen eye on the future is essential,” said Frank Picarello, chief operating officer for managed services provider, TeamLogicIT. “With more than 10 years of success in the managed services space, we are in close agreement with the strategies and technologies presented here as our organization has grown significantly over the last several years, in large part by following such strategies.”

The competitive environment for MSPs is no longer “business as usual” as it has been replaced by a broader and more complex playing field that now includes well-funded telcos. With a thorough understanding of the technologies and market opportunities, managed service providers have the tools and talent at their disposal to compete effectively in this changing environment. The insights provided here are only the first step in strengthening an organization’s competitive position, thereby increasing revenue and generating greater profitability for established market participants.

¹ Ovum Research, Telco-Managed Global Services Revenues to Reach US$297 Billion by 2020, http://www.fiercetelecom.com/press-releases/telco-managed-global-services-revenues-reach-us297bn-2020

² Markets & Markets, Workspace as a Service Market by Solutions (VDI, Applications, DaaS, Hosted Applications, Security Solutions), Services (Managed Service, System Integration, Consulting) – Global Forecast to 2019, http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/workspace-as-a-service-market-250917058.html

³ Infinit Consulting, The 10 Biggest Managed Services Trends to Watch in 2016, March, 2016

Source: CloudStrategyMag

IBM Named A Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant

IBM has announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned IBM as a leader in the July 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Infrastructure Utility Services, North America. This year, IBM was positioned the highest in ability to execute.

IBM points to these results as reflective of the company’s continued leadership in a rapidly changing environment. IBM’s shift from a systems integrator to a services integrator is the future of services across the industry. The integrated and unified management of services and underlying IT infrastructure provides support for clients’ wide-ranging hybrid cloud needs. Hybrid cloud, cognitive computing, and other data and analytics offerings continue to deliver differentiation and growth for companies of all sizes and industries.

Greater IT efficiency saves clients and customers time and money, and allows for smarter distribution of resources to conduct business in today’s IT landscape. These service offerings are making it easier for clients to tap into the wealth of available data for new insights and do business like never before, driving innovation and a competitive edge in the marketplace.

“We believe IBM’s recognition in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Infrastructure Utility Services, NA report is proof of the scope of our services portfolio and ability to bring those services to life for our clients every day,” said Philip Guido, general manager, IBM Services, North America. “The investments we have made in cloud, cognitive, and other areas are propelling our shift from a systems integrator to a services integrator, and redefining the role and capacity of IT services to help organizations accelerate into the future.”

To view the full report, visit http://gtnr.it/2as5UZn.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Report: Amazon Leads In Worldwide Cloud Infrastructure Service Market

New Q2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, IBM, and Google combined control well over half of the worldwide cloud infrastructure service market. They also continue to grow more rapidly than their smaller competitors. In aggregate the big four grew their cloud infrastructure service revenues 68% in Q2, while the next 20 largest cloud providers grew by 41% and all other smaller providers grew by 27%. The market as a whole grew by 51%. Amazon remains in a league of its own, almost three times the size of its nearest competitor and with a clear lead in all major regions and most segments of the market. Meanwhile Microsoft and Google can point to substantially higher growth rates, while IBM continues to feature strongly thanks primarily to its leadership in the hosted private cloud segment.

With most of the major operators having now released their earnings data for Q2, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud) have now reached the $8 billion milestone, while trailing twelve-month revenues are close to $28 billion. North America continues to account for over half of the worldwide market. The EMEA and APAC regions are similar in size, though APAC has a somewhat higher growth rate.

“In a variety of ways Amazon and the other big three players have distanced themselves from the competition in this market and continue to widen the gap,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group. “What marks them out as different is their global presence, marketing muscle, ability to fund huge investments in hyperscale data centers and, in most cases, a determination to succeed in the market. The ranking of the next 20 largest cloud providers features some interesting companies, with Alibaba and Oracle growing particularly strongly, but they are all starting from a long way behind Google, which is itself growing by well over 100% per year and yet remains only a sixth the size of Amazon.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

IBM Named Leader In Private Cloud Adoption By Market Research Firm

IBM has announced that it has been named number one in private cloud by independent technology market research firm Technology Business Research, Inc. (TBR). In TBR’s semi-annual Cloud Customer Research survey of more than 1,800 enterprises around the world, respondents identified IBM as a global private cloud leader for the breadth of its cloud portfolio and expertise in cloud migration.

“A footprint in legacy IT solutions and management is a strong predictor of private cloud vendor success, as private cloud solutions are typically the first step toward hybrid IT environments,” said Cassandra Mooshian, cloud senior analyst, TBR. “Private clouds appeals to enterprises looking to extend their legacy infrastructure and applications to the cloud while helping to optimize past investments.”

IBM leads in overall vendor adoption for private cloud and in select private cloud segments due to its broad cloud and IT services portfolio, variety of deployment options and integration and optimization support. IBM’s expertise and knowledge of both cloud and legacy technology make it easy for customers to develop a migration path to a private cloud model.

Other report findings name IBM as the number one private cloud vendor in:

• Both hosted and self-built cloud for its comprehensive portfolio of cloud and hardware assets, such as security
• Cloud professional services for providing comprehensive solutions that span customers’ entire IT environments
• Adoption across most industries, due to IBM’s vertical approach to cloud and cutting-edge Watson technology
• Self-built hardware and cloud software for the ease of running complete private cloud ecosystems
• Self-built enterprise test and development for its wide variety of options, including behind-the-firewall development with Bluemix Local
• Business intelligence and analytics for leveraging IBM analytics and cognitive capabilities to create tailored BI applications for vertical customers
• E-commerce for IBM’s Commerce on Cloud offering, which was recently expanded to include Watson capabilities

“Being named a top vendor for private cloud by TBR reinforces the importance we place on having choice with consistency across cloud environments,” said Jim Comfort, chief technology officer for IBM Cloud. “For customers needing private cloud environments, whether for security or compliance reasons, IBM provides the necessary connectivity tools, security capabilities and global data center locations that allow us to meet our customers’ needs while safely managing a multitude of cloud connections.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Skyscape Cloud Services Relaunches As UKCloud

Skyscape Cloud Services Limited has renamed and relaunched as UKCloud Ltd to reinforce the company’s exclusive focus on supporting the UK public sector in the digital transformation of services.

“In a very short space of time, as Skyscape Cloud Services, we have experienced rapid growth and have established our company as the leading player in the market,” said Simon Hansford, CEO of UKCloud. “We’re very proud to have helped save millions of pounds of public money by delivering more agile, lower cost IT solutions throughout high-profile Government departments, including the DVLA, Home Office and MOD. Our new name — UKCloud — reflects our unwavering commitment to serving the UK public sector and supporting the digital transformation of citizen-facing services.”

“The Company has taken the decision to relaunch the company on the latest iteration of G-Cloud, G-Cloud 8, with a new name that best portrays the company’s unequivocal focus on the UK public sector and reaffirms its commitment to the market. With the imminent arrival of G-Cloud 8, this was an opportune moment to refresh our brand. At UKCloud, we remain steadfastly focused on working with the public sector, helping to digitise services with our agile, assured and cost-effective cloud services,” said Hansford.

Over the past year, UKCloud has experienced unprecedented growth, significantly expanding its customer base, market share and channel partner programme. In terms of number of employees, the company has grown more than ten-fold in four years, with expectations to double its headcount by the end of 2016. UKCloud has also received widespread industry recognition to date, recently winning the Communications category of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA Award.

Committed to continually evolving its platform, UKCloud recently became the first cloud services provider to offer OpenStack compatible services exclusively for the UK public sector and is the first cloud provider focused on the UK public sector to offer a platform based on Oracle technology. It is also set to announce further support options in the coming months.

“Our sole focus on the UK public sector gives us unparalleled insight into the evolving needs of our customers and partners. Over the past year, we have continued to develop and improve our pioneering assured cloud platform in a number of ways. Additionally, we’ve focussed attention on customer service with new recruits specifically dedicated to ensuring customer satisfaction and a new online portal designed to encourage end-user feedback, ensuring this influences our product development roadmap going forward. For us, these developments and this re-brand provide the perfect launch pad for our business as we continue to grow and innovate enabling our customers and partners to deliver better outcomes for citizens and taxpayers,” said Hansford.

There will be no changes to the company’s legal entity, services, security protocols, organisation structure, governance, or shareholdings.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Unitas Global Announces Acquisition Of AOS Cloud

Unitas Global has announced its acquisition of AOS Cloud. Unitas Global’s acquisition of AOS Cloud will provide the company with significant engineering resources and technology to expand and strengthen the delivery of its Enterprise Cloud Solutions globally. In addition to enhancing the engineering and optimization teams, the acquisition expands the Unitas Global client base and creates a go-to-market partnership that strengthens its channel presence and market reach throughout the Midwest U.S., including Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Missouri. Unitas, with an already impressive performance at 118% CAGR over the past 24 months, will experience immediate growth and improvement in financial performance from this acquisition and relationship with AOS, a leading technology consultative partner in the Midwest.

“Unitas Global is very excited about this strategic acquisition that enriches key technology expertise, expands the services we can offer our enterprise clients, and creates a key go-to-market partnership with AOS,” comments Patrick Shutt, CEO of Unitas Global. “The integration of AOS’ Cloud Management Center brings a proven and capable platform and a solid team of experts into Unitas, expanding our set of solutions and broadening the reach of our hybrid cloud solutions to the enterprise market. Additionally, due to the complementary nature of each company’s client base, AOS becomes a key channel and delivery partner in enterprise-class cloud solutions.”

“This acquisition enables Unitas to significantly enhance the development and delivery of hybrid cloud solutions within the enterprise IT provider space across broader geographic and vertical markets,” adds Grant Kirkwood, founder and CTO of Unitas Global. “Moreover, the move will immediately elevate the Unitas engineering team and Cloud Management Center (CMC) with an infusion of talent that possesses high level expertise operating multi-tenant virtualization as well as expanded skills in other disciplines.”

“This opportunity puts AOS in the unique position to be able to leverage the proven Cloud Management Platform and key technology expertise of our existing engineering team, while enabling us to provide customers access to Unitas’ Enterprise Grade Cloud Solutions,” comments Grant Cynor, CEO at AOS.

Along with the growth of its engineering team and general experts, the addition of AOS Cloud enables Unitas Global to expand its provisioning and monitoring tools as well as its global support structure. The strategic acquisition of AOS Cloud will also provide tools to further simplify customer cloud consumption and expand its managed hosting and services portfolio.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Report: Rising Reliance On Digital Content And Data Sovereignty Drives Data Center Demand

Unprecedented demand for online content such as movies, videos, apps, social media, and photos have become a staple part of the digital diet. And according to JLL’s latest data center report, the adoption of cloud services to store all this content is expected to double the size of the North American data center industry by 2021.

“With information streaming in from every corner of the world, organizations struggle to understand where and how to best manage and process their data to deliver instant, reliable access to information for consumers and businesses alike,” said Bo Bond, Central Region lead for JLL’s Data Center Solutions Group.

“Cloud services, digital content, and new data sovereignty laws are setting the data center market on fire,” he continued. “Demand is historically strong, so the onus is on the data center operators to build space fast enough, while also accommodating shorter, more flexible lease structures that have become highly popular as data strategies have evolved.”

With a spike in protective data sovereignty laws enacted this year, JLL’s annual North America Data Center report also observes that countries are beginning to regulate where the cloud ‘lives.’ Data sovereignty means that digital data is subject to the laws or legal jurisdiction of the country in which it is stored. With this some of the industry’s biggest players are expanding globally faster than ever to meet growing demand and regulatory compliance requirements.

The JLL report covers 17 North American markets for data center facilities, and reveals the top trends influencing U.S. data center locations, including:

1. Cloud adoption will double the size of the data center industry over the next five years. Cloud adoption is racing ahead at break neck speed and even this year, JLL has seen record absorption of data center space totalling 274.2 MW. This is spurring a development surge across the country, especially in markets like Northern Virginia where 1.13 million square feet is under construction and a further 2.67 million square feet is planned.

2. Data center users are disbursing data across locations, aligning with smarter data management strategies. Data center providers and users alike are getting smarter about location planning and load management, while pursuing shorter, more flexible lease structures.

3. Data sovereignty laws are redrawing the global data center location map. From Brazil to Russia, the industry’s biggest players are expanding internationally faster than ever to meet growing demand and help users stay compliant with regulations designed to keep data inside a nation’s borders.

4. Climate change is shaping data center legislation and technology. The realities of global climate change have spurred effective energy efficiency solutions, from refrigerant-based cooling systems to the continuing rise of data center micro grids.

“Cloud services will continue to be the primary demand driver in North America,” said Bond, “The industry’s biggest players are ready for it. They are upping their game with smarter capacity planning and virtualization strategies to meet the growing demand for this very specialized space.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

HCSS Chooses WaaS Platform From CloudJumper

CloudJumper has announced that construction industry software leader, HCSS, has standardized its cloud-based construction software solutions on the CloudJumper nWorkSpace WaaS platform. A pioneer in heavy construction software, HCSS leverages CloudJumper to provide the company’s HeavyBid*, HeavyJob*, and other applications in a hosted environment. Additionally, HCSS utilizes CloudJumper’s platform to deliver complete IT workspaces that allow customers to access critical business applications.

HCSS’s applications support thousands of construction users across the United States in streamlining their operations with cloud-based access to HeavyBid and HeavyJob. The company’s software applications help construction companies better manage their projects from bid to completion. Prior to CloudJumper, HCSS built an in-house solution to make HeavyBid and HeavyJob available to its customers via the cloud. While they were running a successful platform, the company’s exponential growth over a short period of time soon created challenges regarding scalability and speed of deployment. To address the issue, HCSS chose the CloudJumper platform with its service-oriented infrastructure to build a full-featured cloud application software offering capable of meeting user demand.

“We have been growing tremendously and CloudJumper has been growing with us which is what we look for in a business partner,” said Ketul Parekh, cloud services manager, HCSS. “This is very strategic technology for HCSS, requiring a strong partnership to ensure our mutual success. CloudJumper is always there as a partner, and that is an important part of their value.”

“During our review of alternate vendors, it was clear from the evaluations that CloudJumper offered the most mature platform,” added Parekh. “The executives and support team at CloudJumper understood what we needed to meet our goals and worked closely with us to develop the right cloud solution for our software. Having standardized on the CloudJumper nWorkSpace platform, the technology has proven itself in cloud-enabling our applications without the need to redevelop existing software.”

HCSS customers benefit from reduced costs by eliminating the need to invest capital in new servers or IT staff to support application servers and associated infrastructure. Applications are deployed in an enterprise-class environment that includes data backup and redundancy for data protection and business continuity which greatly simplifies IT management. The solution also allows HCSS to target smaller customers as the barriers of entry are lower for deploying the application in a hosted environment compared to a traditional on-site or self-hosted model. The automation, ease of deployment, and scalability of nWorkSpace have been crucial to the solution’s success in helping HCSS deploy software quickly. This has been a win for HCSS and its customers.

CloudJumper markets its solutions through a robust white label program and simplifies management for partners with its easy-to-use control panel, a single pane-of-glass provisioning system, allowing for complete control over customer installations. CloudJumper operates a network of autonomous data centers, all connected by a highly available fiber-optic network. From these locations, the company provides cloud computing solutions with inherent geographical diversity for customers.

“We have made the road to the cloud a simple and cost-effective process for ISVs seeking a highly scalable platform to bring their software to customers globally,” said JD Helms, president, CloudJumper. “As illustrated in the case with HCSS, the level of workflow and automation we provide significantly reduces the complexity and cost of cloud-enabling entire catalogs of software in a secure, highly reliable platform.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Report: Cloud Data Security Still A Challenge For Many Companies

Despite the continued importance of cloud computing resources to organizations, companies are not adopting appropriate governance and security measures to protect sensitive data in the cloud. These are just a few findings a Ponemon Institute study titled, “The 2016 Global Cloud Data Security Study,” commissioned by Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security. The study surveyed more than 3,400 IT and IT security practitioners worldwide to gain a better understanding of key trends in data

According to 73% of respondents, cloud-based services and platforms are considered important to their organization’s operations and 81% said they will be more so over the next two years. In fact, 36% of respondents said their companies’ total IT and data processing needs were met using cloud resources today and that they expected this to increase to 45% over the next two years. 

Although cloud-based resources are becoming more important to companies’ IT operations and business strategies, 54%% of respondents did not agree their companies have a proactive approach to managing security and complying with privacy and data protection regulations in cloud environments. This is despite the fact that 65% of respondents said their organizations are committed to protecting confidential or sensitive information in the cloud. Furthermore, 56% did not agree their organization is careful about sharing sensitive information in the cloud with third parties such as business partners, contractors and vendors. 

“Cloud security continues to be a challenge for companies, especially in dealing with the complexity of privacy and data protection regulations,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute. “To ensure compliance, it is important for companies to consider deploying such technologies as encryption, tokenization or other cryptographic solutions to secure sensitive data transferred and stored in the cloud.” 

“Organizations have embraced the cloud with its benefits of cost and flexibility but they are still struggling with maintaining control of their data and compliance in virtual environments,” said Jason Hart, vice president and chief technology officer for Data Protection at Gemalto. “It’s quite obvious security measures are not keeping pace because the cloud challenges traditional approaches of protecting data when it was just stored on the network. It is an issue that can only be solved with a data-centric approach in which IT organizations can uniformly protect customer and corporate information across the dozens of cloud-based services their employees and internal departments rely every day.” 

Key Findings

• Cloud security is stormy because of shadow IT.
 According to respondents, nearly half (49%) of cloud services are deployed by departments other than corporate IT, and an average of 47% of corporate data stored in cloud environments is not managed or controlled by the IT department. However, confidence in knowing all cloud computing services in use is increasing. Fifty-four percent of respondents are confident that the IT organization knows all cloud computing applications, platform or infrastructure services in use – a 9% increase from 2014. 
• Conventional security practices do not apply in the cloud.
 In 2014, 60% of respondents felt it was more difficult to protect confidential or sensitive information when using cloud services. This year, 54% said the same. Difficulty in controlling or restricting end-user access increased from 48% in 2014 to 53% of respondents in 2016. The other major challenges that make security difficult include the inability to apply conventional information security in cloud environments (70% of respondents) and the inability to directly inspect cloud providers for security compliance (69% of respondents). 
• More customer information is being stored in the cloud and is considered the data most at risk.
 According to the survey, customer information, emails, consumer data, employee records and payment information are the types of data most often stored in the cloud. Since 2014, the storage of customer information in the cloud has increased the most, from 53% in 2014 to 62% of respondents saying their company was doing this today. Fifty-three percent also considered customer information the data most at risk in the cloud. 
• Security departments left in the dark when it comes to buying cloud services. Only 21% of respondents said members of the security team are involved in the decision-making process about using certain cloud application or platforms. The majority of respondents (64%) also said their organizations do not have a policy that requires use of security safeguards, such as encryption, as a condition to using certain cloud computing applications. 
• Encryption is important but not yet pervasive in the cloud. Seventy-two percent of respondents said the ability to encrypt or tokenize sensitive or confidential data is important, with 86% saying it will become more important over the next two years, up from 79% in 2014. While the importance of encryption is growing, it is not yet widely deployed in the cloud. For example, for SaaS, the most popular type of cloud-based service, only 34% of respondents say their organization encrypts or tokenizes sensitive or confidential data directly within cloud-based applications. 
• Many companies still rely on passwords to secure user access to cloud services.
 Sixty-seven percent of respondents said the management of user identities is more difficult in the cloud than on-premises. However, organizations are not adopting measures that are easy to implement and could increase cloud security. About half (45%) of companies are not using multi-factor authentication to secure employee and third-party access to applications and data in the cloud, which means many companies are still relying on just user names and passwords to validate identities. This puts more data at risk because 58% of respondents say their organizations have third-party users accessing their data and information in the cloud.

Recommendations for Data Security in the Cloud

The new realities of Cloud IT mean that IT organizations need to set comprehensive policies for data governance and compliance, create guidelines for the sourcing of cloud services, and establish rules for what data can and cannot be stored in the cloud. 

IT organizations can accomplish their mission to protect corporate data while also being an enabler of their “Shadow IT” by implementing data security measures such as encryption that allow them to protect data in the cloud in a centralized fashion as their internal organizations source cloud-based services as needed. 

As companies store more data in the cloud and utilize more cloud-based services, IT organizations need to place greater emphasis on stronger user access controls with multi-factor authentication. This is even more important for companies that give third-parties and vendors access to their data in cloud.

Source: CloudStrategyMag