Market Perspectives

With the increasing exodus from on-premises solutions, organizations are migrating towards cloud computing for data analytics. Cloud computing supports rapid growth, collaborative analysis and real-time insights without requiring large capital investments in IT infrastructure. A cloud-based approach to analytics can help organizations be more agile and responsive to opportunities in the market.

Cloud-based analytics are becoming critical components for organizations’ information architectures. Open technologies offer greater flexibility and can be deployed in multiple configurations, including cloud or on-premises. Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that more than half (52%) of organizations have hybrid analytics and data deployments.

Even organizations that cannot shift all data to the cloud because of data sovereignty requirements or strict governance rules can use hybrid cloud analytics. Hybrid services can extend an organization’s analytics capabilities by integrating data from all sources and bring it together on a single platform.

Running applications on cloud infrastructure versus a managed cloud service offers different cost and benefit profiles. When cloud-based analytics are managed by customers rather than a vendor, the customer must do all software maintenance and upgrades, thus limiting agility. These organizations must also configure business continuity solutions, perhaps installing software on multiple systems to maintain one as a standby for the other, which diverts resources from starting new projects.

On the other hand, running a cloud application managed by a vendor means that the vendor is responsible for maintaining the application software, keeping it up to date, ensuring high availability in the system and freeing resources to be more agile and responsive to new business requirements. As a result, the increased agility offered by cloud-based analytics platforms is generally associated with managed cloud applications.

Cloud deployments have raised major concerns in terms of security and compliance, and many organizations have been hesitant to adopt cloud technologies for these reasons. Our research finds that more than one-half of participants (56%) cite security and compliance as reasons their organizations chose not to deploy cloud-based data and analytics. While some of the concerns related to the lack of certifications in cloud-based systems, others related to fear of the unknown and risk avoidance.

Cloud security and compliance mechanisms have evolved over time, and now with more history behind us, we can better understand and avoid the risk of public cloud breaches. Today, cloud-analytics platforms have many security mechanisms fully integrated, and offer numerous compliance certifications.

Analytics vendors recognize that organizations need to ensure compliance both internally and externally. There are now general system certifications available in many analytics platforms, including those of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and Service Organization Control (SOC) standards as well as industry-specific certifications, such as those under HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. There are also certifications and regulations specific to organizations operating in certain geographies, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

If an organization installs and maintains its own system, it will likely need to do additional work to achieve the various certifications. However, in the same way that fully managed cloud analytics software reduces the effort required to install and maintain the systems, it also reduces the effort required to obtain various certifications, as the vendor has already done the work and has built the certifications into the system.

In general, regulatory requirements may actually be more easily and reliably met by employing the cloud. Based on our Data Governance Benchmark Research, nearly half (47%) of organizations have data governance plans specific to cloud-computing applications. Keeping such specifics in mind, organizations should evaluate security and compliance requirements to determine if cloud-analytics vendors can meet those needs.

Organizations can choose from various cloud analytics software based on specific requirements, supported by a range of services from vendors, including public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud options. Organizations shifting to cloud analytics will experience enhanced sharing and collaboration, improved security, lower costs, scalability and increased agility.