Over five in six (83%) organisations using the cloud prioritise a high level of security when looking for a cloud solution, according to a new report.
The study from Ingram Micro Cloud surveyed 250 UK-based cloud end users from a variety of mid-market and enterprise organisations, and across a range of key sectors.
According to the survey, other aspects that are important to end user businesses include competitive pricing (74%), scalability (68%) and the capacity to back up and archive (52%).
These figures provide a clear indication that those using the cloud want a solution that incorporates a wide variety of attributes and functions, in turn providing a comprehensive service that can be adapted to a company’s specific needs.
This is another area where resellers can look to add value and position themselves as central players in the cloud ecosystem. With such a multitude of features desired by end users, the expertise of a channel business, with deep knowledge of a solution, can be instrumental: resellers specialise in creating bespoke platforms for their customers, bringing an added layer of support and flexibility that a developer may struggle to provide.
By taking some of this burden away from the developer, resellers can bring an exceptional level of service to customers, while developers can spend more time fine-tuning and expanding their suite of available products and features.
Preparing for the year ahead
Despite the security risks and challenges, cloud adoption continues at a rapid pace, with total worldwide public cloud services market revenue expected to have hit $260.2 billion in 2017, according to Gartner – an increase of 18.5% year-on-year.
Ingram Micro’s findings will come as no surprise following a year where top organisations have suffered heavy data breaches and security incidents, and are looking to shore up against future instances.
The survey also revealed that there are opportunities for resellers to offer additional security services as part of a managed cloud services offering, with 52% of them seeing additional security services as a necessary part of strengthening their customer relationships.
Ensuring cloud security is also vital for companies ahead of incoming GDPR regulations as a part of what any organisation storing personal data of EU citizens has to have in place by May.
These regulations are forcing companies and cloud third parties into a shared responsibility model. For cloud vendors, the main responsibility is to protect their infrastructure and applications so that customers can use them without worrying about security flaws. But the responsibility for protecting data stored on that infrastructure, from the operating system to the applications, is down to the individual organisation.
