By 2020, 83% of a business’s workloads are expected to be on the cloud. In the coming year, companies will begin investing heavily in advanced backup solutions and employees that can manage these systems. Here are three things you need to know about cloud backup in 2019.
Hybrid backup solutions will be crucial for businesses
One of the biggest challenges that companies face when it comes to data is deciding where to store it. Increasingly, company leaders are choosing to store their data in multiple locations.
Cloud storage provides a lot of flexibility, but also poses several challenges. Fortunately, implementing a hybrid backup solution counteracts many of these challenges.
According to Gartner, 90% of companies will switch to hybrid infrastructure by 2020.
With a hybrid backup solution, you’ll have a dedicated on-site storage system, to which all of your company’s data will back up automatically. Simultaneously, the on-site system will sync with the cloud at regularly scheduled intervals. This means your information is available on both systems, and if your on-site system happens to go down, it will remain on the cloud as backup.
Companies will find ways to bridge the skills gap
They say good help is hard to find, but it gets even harder when you’re looking for someone to manage your data. According to a survey by OpsRamp, 90% of survey respondents had a hard time finding employees with the proper business and technology skills. In 2017, the United States had more than 260,000 unfulfilled IT jobs — which cost the country nearly $20 billion.
This skills shortage is a big deal because it inhibits future digital transformation. As cloud backup becomes more utilized, companies will need to find employees with the skills to manage aspects like downtime and monitoring cloud-based assets. And while handling public and private cloud systems is more common, being able to work with multi-cloud and hybrid systems is a more rare and specialized skill set.
Going forward, companies will start beginning to invest in training that will help employees manage these solutions more effectively.
They say good help is hard to find, but it gets even harder when you’re looking for someone to manage your data.
Cloud security will be a huge point of concern
With more companies tapping into the flexibility, agility and cost savings that come along with moving data to the cloud, there are additional compliance risks and security threats.
Unfortunately, many U.S. companies seem unprepared to deal with these threats. According to a report by Unit 42, account compromises are increasing substantially. Here are some of the main points highlighted in this report:
- 29% of companies have potential account compromises
- 32% are publicly exposed on at least one cloud backup device
- 32% of all General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) compliance checks fail
- 49% of companies haven’t encrypted their databases
Additionally, in 2018, there were a number of high-profile security breaches of public cloud environments. Under Armour, Facebook and British Airways were just a few of the companies that went through very public data breaches.
Giving thorough consideration to data security protocols and ensuring that your data storage is safe and compliant with GDPR regulations will help keep your business’s information secure.
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