The IT Nerd

Aptum, a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider, has announced Part 2 of its annual Cloud Impact Report 2022, titled Solving the Data Security Equation. The report examines the complexities inherent in hybrid cloud environments and their implications on security, data governance, compliance and disaster recovery. In particular, it finds that while companies are convinced of the value of cloud computing, its drivers have evolved.

Drivers to the cloud
When it comes to the value of cloud, the majority of respondents (91%) consider cloud computing to be essential for data management. In fact, more than half (54%) believe cloud transformation has had a positive impact on data governance. 

While financial considerations have traditionally been a common driver, the study shows a shift in focus for many organizations, especially as security concerns evolve and continue to be top-of-mind:

• 50% of respondents cited efficiency as the top motivator for cloud investments
• Increased security is the second most important business driver for organizations investing in cloud computing, with 48% of respondents citing it as a key factor in their investment
• Resilience is also a primary driver of cloud computing investments for 40% of companies

Managing complexity
During the pandemic, organizations had to hastily increase their cloud deployments to support the increase in remote work, enhance business resilience and enable greater flexibility. As a result, many businesses naturally moved toward a hybrid model. In fact, 86% of respondents said their organization has adopted a hybrid or multi cloud approach to cloud deployments. 

For many organizations, the move to hybrid has meant their environments have become increasingly complex as data and workloads are now located across a range of cloud and non-cloud infrastructures. 

As a result, many are grappling with complexities traditionally associated with hybrid cloud environments, such as data and workloads being located across a range of cloud and non-cloud infrastructures. Of those respondents, the top challenges cited in managing their environments include control and governance of access to cloud environments (90%); a clear mechanism to detect and respond to security threats across all environments (90%); and the ability to efficiently meet requirements of compliance audits (90%).

Impacts on security
The study showed that managing security effectively is no longer just an issue of securing data within each environment; data must also be secured as it moves between locations. 

When it comes to disaster recovery, the study’s results tell a similar story of complexity. Disaster recovery is amongst the top reasons organizations are continuing to move data to the cloud, with 37% of respondents citing improved data backup services and disaster recovery as a driver. However, 87% of respondents cite the ability to provide Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to the business as a key consideration.

Strategy is key to cloud transformation

The study’s results reveal that only 20% of organizations surveyed have a holistic cloud strategy in place. The other 80% have a fragmented approach to cloud transformation that lacks the necessary big-picture thinking.  The results also reaffirm a singular holistic cloud strategy must have security principles embedded in its design at the earliest stage possible. By doing so, businesses can take an integrated approach to security, mitigate threats and minimize risks across their entire infrastructure stack. This will eliminate any disconnect between the cloud’s promise of secure, reliable operations and what organizations will actually experience.

To see the full findings from part two of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2022, Solving the Security Equation, please download the report here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/2022-cis-part-2/.

For Part 1 of the report, Hybrid: Why and How– Applying Lessons from Digital Transformation, please visit here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/2022-cis-part-1/. (News release)

The study canvassed the opinions and approach to cloud technology of 400 senior IT professionals. Respondents were from organizations with 250+ employees in the U.S., Canada and UK. Industries included financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public education and the commercial sector. 

Aptum, a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider, today released part one of its annual Cloud Impact Study 2022. The report, titled Hybrid: Why and How – Applying lessons from digital transformation, explores the deployment of workloads on different cloud infrastructures and examines the decision-making process behind their placement.  

Report Highlights:

The majority of IT decision-makers plan to increase their organization’s use of public cloud (78%) and private cloud (72%) infrastructure over the next 18-24 months. 

Eighty-six per cent (86%) of respondents said their organization has adopted a hybrid or multi-cloud approach to cloud deployment.

A vast majority of the respondents also recognized many of the benefits the cloud delivers to their organizations, with the majority agreeing it has delivered on expected efficiencies (90%). Respondents also cited the rate of cloud transformation in their organization has had a positive impact on the following areas:

• Innovation (71%) 
• Operational efficiency (71%)
• Workforce mobility and enablement (63%)
• IT expenditure (63%)
• Customer experience (63%)

Indeed, when presented with 12 application categories, respondents said the cloud is the preferred hosting option for all of them, compared to just two out of nine categories in Aptum’s first Cloud Impact Study in 2021. However, despite recognizing the benefits of the cloud, not all workloads are destined for cloud platforms, and some organizations are experiencing a ‘cloud boomerang effect’ among specific applications. Almost half (47%) of respondents anticipate an increase in their organization’s use of traditional (non-cloud-based) infrastructure over the next 18-24 months, up from just under a quarter (23%) in 2021. 

The study identifies that one of the causes of the shift back to legacy infrastructure is rooted in lack of strategy. Only 20% of respondents said they have a holistic cloud computing strategy. Additionally, integration of cloud with on-premises systems was cited as the top challenge an organization would face when operating in cloud environments, tied first with data privacy and security challenges.

The primary focus of development teams is on the creation of new versions of applications, meaning limited time can be spent on administrative duties required to refactor workloads for cloud. Due to this, the onus often shifts back to the operations teams to manage administration. Unfortunately, operations teams often lack the necessary skills or resources. If they lack skills, tools, cloud governance policies or operational practices to enforce operational standards, these workloads will often come back to legacy platforms.

The survey results call for organizations to look at ecosystems, with business objectives and optimization in mind, to avoid placing workloads in inappropriate locations. To save time, money and resources and to increase interoperability, businesses should look to hybrid and multi-cloud specialist providers, with the skills and experience to assist in those decisions. 

The study canvassed the opinions and approach to cloud technology of 400 senior IT professionals. Respondents were from organizations with 250+ employees in the U.S., Canada and UK. Industries included financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public education and the commercial sector. 

To see the full findings from part one of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2022, Hybrid: Why and How – Applying lessons from digital transformation, please download the report here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/2022-cis-part-1/ 

Nearly 60% of respondents agree that cloud adoption has improved their organization’s agility, but that they could be more agile still. This finding comes from the fourth and final part of the Cloud Impact Study from Aptum, the hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider. The report, titled The Modernization Minefield, examines the deployment of workloads on different infrastructures and the adoption of cloud services at enterprise application level.

The independent research reveals that, despite only 39% of IT professionals being completely satisfied with their rate of cloud transformation, the adoption of practices that lend themselves to cloud native technology and enable agility remains low. 

Only 20% of respondents are utilizing DevOps across all applications, and just 17% use container services to develop and deploy all apps. DevOps and container services increase agility by speeding up application deployment times, improving productivity through continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), enabling easy and frequent patching, and minimizing production costs. 

Respondents recognize many of the benefits of DevOps and container services adoption, with common anticipated benefits from further adoption including increased operational efficiency (77%), improved responsiveness (59%) and improved customer experience (58%). So, what is stopping organizations from realizing their cloud native potential?

Effectively refactoring applications requires an up-front commitment of resources and investment, including hardware, software, people, and skillsets like DevOps. The alternative of lifting and shifting an application into a cloud environment can often be a more expensive and less successful endeavour and can deter organizations that already have sunk costs. In fact, findings from part two of the Cloud Impact Study, The Security and Compliance Barricade, found that refactoring legacy applications for cloud infrastructure is a top barrier to cloud transformation (35%), second only to security and compliance (38%). 

As a result, for seven out of nine application categories – Human Resources (HR), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), backup, disaster recovery, bespoke applications, development, and operations – on-premises remains the preferred hosting option.

As noted in each of the Cloud Impact Study reports, organizations recognize that they need expert help to plan and execute their transformation strategies. Choosing a Managed Services Provider that understands which areas of a business can be enhanced through cloud services, and which areas should remain on-premises is a crucial step in that process. 

The full findings of the final part of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2020/21, The Modernization Minefield can be found here. 

Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study was created from the opinions of 400 senior IT professionals in the US, Canada, and UK across industries in financial services, IT, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public and commercial sectors. 

The blog post, Navigating the modernization minefield, can be found here: https://aptum.com/blog/navigating-the-modernization-minefield/

For part one of the report, Bridging the Cloud Gap, please visit here. 

For part two of the report, The Security and Compliance Barricade, please visit here. 

For part three of the report, A Cloudy Forecast, please visit here.

Aptum, a global hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider,today introduced new tiers for its Managed Azure Cloud services, allowing customers to easily select an Azure managed service level that meets their business needs and cloud adoption goals, wherever they are on their cloud journey. Aptum’s Managed Azure Cloud now includes three enhanced tiers: 

• Foundation – an offering designed for companies with significant internal IT resources and minimal skills gaps, with low-cost managed services and tools included
• Advanced – geared towards customers who have gaps in cloud competencies or available resources; includes proactive support from Aptum
• Premium – designed for customers looking to focus on their core business, while outsourcing many of their IT functions – such as operating system support — so they can focus on non-IT related tasks. Ideal for customers who need support with cloud adoption planning, or hybrid or complex environments.

All three tiers give customers access to Aptum tools, programs and resources for their cloud transformation, including Aptum’s Cost Insights Dashboard, 24×7 support and advisory services. They also allow customers to tailor their Managed Azure Cloud services to suit their specific needs.

Aptum’s Managed Azure Cloud provides customers with day-to-day operational management within the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform, including best practice advice, configuration assistance and troubleshooting services, as well as OS patching, anti-malware, monitoring and backup. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for businesses to supplement in-house knowledge and expertise and free up IT resources for other priorities; reduce overall costs; improve performance and speed; and enable reliable cloud consumption forecasting, while maximizing security. 

Aptum’s Managed Azure Cloud enhanced tiers are available immediately. For more information, please visit https://aptum.com/services/cloud/managed-azure/.

Aptum, a global hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider, today announced it has partnered with NEON CORP., a turnkey eCommerce platform and retail solutions provider, to transition its IT infrastructure to Microsoft Azure Cloud, boosting NEON’s scalability and augmenting its IT security. 

NEON provides eCommerce platform build services including order fulfillment and management, customer service, marketing services, hosting and cybersecurity. The company wanted to shift to a managed cloud solution that would allow it to maintain its business growth and efficiently add new clients to its eCommerce platforms. 

The company turned to Aptum for support. Aptum assisted NEON in making the transition to Azurewith its Azure Design & Build, Azure Managed Services and Aptum Managed Web Application Firewall (WAF). Aptum used its Professional Services expertise to optimize NEON’s eCommerce platforms for the Azure environment and provided enhanced security through Managed Detection and Response solution. NEON also benefits by leveraging Aptum’s many security certifications, including enabling PCI DSS, helping the company meet its compliance and governance requirements.

With Aptum’s managed services, NEON CORP. was able to make a seamless switch to Azure, optimize performance and protect their eCommerce platforms. The company is now able to grow its business quickly in a highly secure environment, while improving the experience for its partners.

Although most organizations (80 per cent) recognize cloud computing as being vital to their financial security, more than half (57 per cent) have encountered unexpected costs. These findings come from part three of the four-part Cloud Impact Study from Aptum, the global hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider. The report, titled A Bright Forecast on Cloud, explores the financial benefits of cloud computing and how organizations can optimize cloud spend.

According to the report findings, most IT professionals (80 per cent) see success in utilizing cloud services to unlock greater business profitability. The agility of cloud deployments allows organizations to quickly scale their services to support demand, release new products or services to market, and subsequently improve profit margins and increase efficiencies. In fact, increased efficiency is a common driver behind cloud computing for 72 per cent of respondents. The overall efficiency and flexibility of cloud allows organizations to only pay for what they use, increasing overall profitability, which is cited by 39 per cent of respondents as a motivator behind cloud adoption.

However, as organizations migrate workloads to different cloud platforms, visibility and control into cloud environments becomes difficult to achieve, often leading to unforeseen costs – a key challenge for 81 per cent of respondents. Without necessary insights to evaluate performance and enforce remedial measures for issues, the efficiency of cloud becomes hard to manage. This is the case for over half of respondents (57 per cent) who say cloud has resulted in unanticipated costs, and over a third of respondents (35 per cent) who admit they are wasting IT spend due to the inefficient use of cloud platforms. 

The data suggests that cloud deployments without expert guidance from a Managed Service Partner (MSP) can increase associated costs if cloud optimization is not a fundamental principle from the start. Taking a holistic approach to cloud infrastructures, where visibility and control are embedded from design, can ensure costs are optimized and the service runs at maximum efficiency.

The full findings from part 3 of the Cloud Impact Study, A Bright Forecast on Cloud, can be found here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/cis-part-3/.

Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study was created from the opinions of 400 senior IT professionals in the US, Canada, and UK across industries in financial services, IT, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public and commercial sectors. The final report will focus on Modernization Opportunities.

For part one of the report, Bridging the Cloud Gap, please visit: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/cis-part-1/.

For part two of the report, The Security and Compliance Barricade, please visit: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/cis-part-2/.

Recently, Susan Bowen, CEO and President of Aptum, hosted a panel discussion on “How business leaders can stay on the offensive in challenging times” with Philbert Shih, Managing Director of analyst firm Structure Research; Jack Danahy, Former SVP of Business Development and Chief Evangelist with managed security leader Alert Logic; and Mark Vivian, CEO of Oracle Managed Services provider Claremont.

During the discussion, they touched on these topics:

• Business Strategy – How the pandemic has impacted business, and strategies to grow in the face of challenge
• IT Security – Security in the new business landscape, and its impact on the IT environment
• IT Infrastructure – The immediate impacts IT infrastructure can have on business success
• Remote Work – Strategies to keep remote workers engaged and maintain (or even build) productivity

A defensive business strategy is often the fallback approach for organizations in turbulent times. Over the past year the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many organizations to adopt this mindset. Putting new remote work strategies in place, shifting budgets to compensate for unpredictable revenue and trying to maintain a ‘business as usual’ stance has consumed senior executives across all industries. To grow their customer base and revenues, businesses must now be on the offensive.

The panelists all agreed organizations looking to be more aggressive need to have a solid cloud strategy. Toronto-based Philbert Shih at Structure Research has followed the cloud and data centre market for 20 years and noted that like the 2008/2009 financial crisis, the pandemic has spurred interest in cloud and outsourced infrastructure. 

As businesses shift more of their infrastructure to the cloud, security will play a key role. For example, the increase in employees working from home creates different security dynamics, Alert Logic’s Jack Danahy noted. IT infrastructures that were once managed on-site now need to be managed remotely. And with more devices being used for both personal and professional applications, new security processes need to be explored. 

Technology isn’t the only factor organizations need to address to take a more offensive business stance post-pandemic. Remote work is here to stay and ensuring employees feel connected to one another and the company will be more important when they’re not in regular face-to-face contact.

All panelists believe over the next 12 months, more organizations will turn to the cloud to boost scalability, efficiency and security.  

Please see Bowen’s full blog here: https://aptum.com/blog/how-business-leaders-can-stay-on-the-offensive-in-challenging-times/

The roundtable recording is also available here.

While 91 per cent of organizations were successful in increasing security as a result of adopting cloud services, it remains a top concern for many. This finding comes from part two of the four-part Cloud Impact Study from Aptum, the global hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider. The report, titled The Security and Compliance Barricade, identifies common security, compliance and governance challenges impacting organizations undergoing cloud transformation. 

The independent research reveals that more than half of survey respondents (51%) see security as the main driver behind cloud adoption. However, 38 per cent cite security and data protection as the primary barrier to cloud transformation. 

Security and compliance play a critical role

Part one of the Cloud Impact Study, Bridging the Cloud Gap, found most survey respondents plan to take a hybridized approach to their cloud infrastructure, with more than half (59%) of respondents saying they will reduce their on-premises infrastructure to some degree and increase public cloud deployments within the next 18-24 months. A further 66 per cent intend to expand their private cloud workloads. 
According to data found in today’s report, this expansion and diversification of infrastructure raises security and compliance issues among senior IT professionals, including: 

• Control and governance (82%) 
• Visibility through a single portal (81%) 
• Ability to meet requirements of compliancy audits (80%) 

Together, Aptum and Alert Logic partner to safeguard business critical data across the infrastructure and application stack, merging security technology, threat intelligence and 24/7 security experts to deliver security outcomes to businesses in an as-a-service model. 

The study’s results reinforce the importance of incorporating security into cloud architectures from design through to implementation and transformation. The results call for organizations to take a holistic approach to cloud architectures, with security principles embedded in the design. By doing this, businesses can mitigate threats and minimize risks as they arise to create an environment safer than any on-premise or legacy alternatives. 

The full findings of part two of the Cloud Impact Study, The Security and Compliance Barricade, can be found here.

Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study was created from the opinions of 400 senior IT professionals in Canada, the U.S. and U.K. across industries in financial services, IT, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public and commercial sectors. The final two reports will focus on Costs and Budgets and Modernization Opportunities. 

For part one of the report, Bridging the Cloud Gap, please visit here. 

While Canadian organizations have often been perceived as conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, a new survey from Aptum, a global hybrid cloud and managed services provider, demonstrates exactly how essential cloud computing has become in the country. Seven out of 10 (69 per cent) Canadian organizations said the cloud is very important.
In a recent global survey of 400 senior IT professionals from organizations in industries including financial services, manufacturing, public sector, retail and telecom, more than half (51 per cent) of respondents from Canada strongly agreed that cloud computing is essential in enabling business continuity within their organizations (compared to 49 per cent globally). Canadians are slightly ahead of their global counterparts in how much they rely on cloud with 51 per cent of respondents saying they strongly agree cloud computing is essential to the financial security of their organizations (compared to only 40 per cent globally). 

This level of strategic importance placed on cloud has translated into organizational confidence in technology to help businesses maintain continuity throughout the current COVID-19 pandemic. For example:

• 53 per cent have used cloud services to provide customers with critical services (48 per cent globally);
• 77 per cent had used cloud to enable their remote workforces (76 per cent globally).  

Even though Canadian organizations seem to have fully embraced the cloud, they still find picking the right solutions and plotting a course through different technologies difficult with 72 per cent of respondents somewhat or strongly agreeing that complexity and abundant choices make choosing the right cloud strategy difficult (62 per cent globally). A majority of respondents in Canada (77 per cent) even wanted to accelerate cloud adoption but needed expertise or help to make it happen (69 per cent globally). 

Canadian businesses looking to adopt cloud services also face significant challenges in these areas: 

• Getting full visibility into all cloud environments through a single portal (23 per cent in Canada versus 21 per cent globally)
• Control and governance of access to cloud environments (25 per cent in Canada versus 18 per cent globally)
• A clear mechanism to detect and respond to security threats across all cloud environments (24 per cent in Canada versus 21 per cent globally)

The global survey of 400 senior IT professionals in Canada, the U.K, and U.S. was conducted between May and June 2020. 

There is a blog post from Aptum which uses global numbers from the survey: https://aptum.com/blog/cloud-technologies-leading-businesses-through-covid-19-crisis/

Also of note, all of Aptum’s data centers in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and England are now open and allowing access to their customers with clear guidelines and procedures to remain COVID-19 secure.

Aptum, a global hybrid cloud and managed services provider, has introduced its Managed Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offering, allowing businesses to minimize the risk of IT service downtime from any type of disruption, including ransomware and malware, and focus instead on strategic priorities. 

Aptum’s Managed DRaaS relies on enterprise-grade replication software to back up customer data in near real time and maintain operations to mitigate disruptions, planned or unplanned, whether misconfigurations, attacks or natural disasters at the customer’s primary site. The solution uses the cloud to protect data offsite and allows customers to order and power up virtual machines (VMs) on demand in the event of a failover. Businesses can customize the offering to suit their specific needs, such as file-level restore or full or partial failover of systems.

Aptum will work with customers to build a Managed DRaaS solution that meets their overall Business Continuity Plan objectives, backed by 24×7 support, 365 days a year from service centers in North America and Europe.
Features of Aptum’s DRaaS include:

• Low Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – the measure of the maximum tolerable amount of data to lose in a failover – to protect the customer’s virtual production infrastructure
• Allows point-in-time rollbacks to protect against malware and ransomware·  Provides machine level, file level, partial or full restore
• Offers non-disruptive failover testing for validation purposes·  Provides ability to create dev/test environments using production data and software in an isolated and secure infrastructure
• Offers a remote disaster recovery site without the up-front cost associated with a second infrastructure stack

Aptum DRaaS is available immediately with supported environments including HyperV, VMware and Azure.