Organizations Prefer Third-Party Solutions for Cloud Workload Protection

When it comes to ensuring cloud- and SaaS-based workloads remain available, organizations tend to rely on outside experts to handle the laborious chore of backup and protection, according to a recent ActualTech Media poll.

The survey found that more than half of respondents — 53 percent — use a third-party tool to back up the data in those environments.

The result isn’t surprising, but does tend to reinforce the opinion that having expertise in such a crucial area is worth paying for.

Slightly fewer than 1-in-5, or 19 percent, of poll-takers see less of a need for that protection, answering that they prefer to use the native default protections provided by the cloud platform or SaaS vendor. (Or they may simply believe the price is too high to pay yet another monthly subscription fee.)

About 12 percent of respondents appear to have found a compromise solution, stating that although they use the service provider to handle workload protection, they’ve upgraded to a higher tier of service that goes beyond the basics.

Whatever route you take to secure your cloud- and SaaS-based workloads, it’s imperative that you don’t consider it a back-burner budget item. Consider these statistics from a recent research report:  

• 28% of organizations suffered a cloud or SaaS data breach last year. Of those, more than a third were hit more than once
• 60% employ two or more tools in their efforts to protect from attacks
• Only 38% are assessing cloud security continuously
• 1 in 5 struggle just to apply patches reliably

These sobering statistics highlight the urgent need for protection.