Cloud data protection is a data protection model that focuses on safeguarding organizational data stored, managed, and manipulated in a cloud or hybrid environment. The model necessitates the coordination of numerous data policies, methods, and solutions. In this article, we will define cloud data protection, discuss its importance for businesses, and provide thorough best practices for 2022.
What Exactly Is Cloud Data Protection?
Cloud data protection is a data security model that concentrates on organizational data stored, manipulated, as well as managed in a cloud or hybrid environment. The model necessitates the coordination of numerous data policies, methods, and solutions.
The process of protecting an organization’s data from compromise, loss, or theft is known as data protection. Traditional data protection models performed well for simple on-premise deployments, but they can become complicated when dealing with data stored in the cloud or hybrid environments. This article focuses on cloud data protection in particular. When experts discuss data security, they include
- Data protection is the process of dealing with data loss by investigating backup and restoration systems and processes.
- Data security is concerned with protecting the company and client data from both internal and external threats.
- Data privacy is concerned with controlling and managing access to various data segments so that only appropriate people have access to relevant information.
Cloud data protection models must also accommodate the various types of data that organizations generally work with. Public data, internal company data that only employees have access to, sensitive data that can range from employee payroll information to client social security numbers, and restricted data that is governed by government regulations are examples of these.
When an organization’s infrastructure is entirely on-premise, IT and DevOps teams have a bird’s-eye view of data. This is not the case once cloud vendors are involved, particularly public clouds. The shared responsibility model is used by cloud vendors. This means that, while cloud vendors handle protection scenarios like backup and recovery, customers (organizations) are in charge of securing their own data and traffic.
Using the cloud does reduce costs, but at the expense of control. Organizations must make decisions based on vendors to maintain the physical hardware as well as network security. Although vendors provide a set of security guidelines and controls, they retain a portion of the security scope.
Today’s infrastructure is comprised of numerous platforms, services, but also third-party applications. In a single setup, multiple cloud vendors may be involved. This indicates an inconsistency in how data is stored, handled, and secured. The integration of these various components must also be seamless in terms of data security.
These difficulties highlight the need for a unified and consistent data protection strategy as well as a solution. This is where data protection models play a role.
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The Importance of Cloud Data Protection for Businesses
Companies are increasingly recognizing the cost-effectiveness as well as ease of operation that can be obtained by migrating infrastructure as well as assets to the cloud, or at least to a hybrid environment. In fact, cloud traffic was approximated to be 3,851 exabytes even five years ago.
The pandemic has only speeded up the adoption of cloud computing by businesses of all sizes. According to Gartner, this surge in cloud adoption could result in cloud data centers processing 94% of the company’s workload by the end of 2021.
As the number of remote workers grows, so does the need to protect company data access and movement across various both known and unknown networks. A solid cloud data protection model can:
Data visibility is maintained
Most businesses have data flowing and being stored in multiple clouds, services, as well as applications. With so many players involved, it is easy for data segments to fall through the cracks. A good cloud data protection model starts with a map of every single piece of data, which is updated on a regular basis. This improves data hygiene and even helps to reduce data storage costs by removing non-essential data.
Ensures the integrity of data In today’s business environment, data can make or break a company’s success. As a result, data must be accurate, complete, as well as reliable at all stages of its lifecycle. This is why cloud data protection is advantageous. One of the inherent aims of cloud data protection is to make sure that no company data is outdated, manipulated, or lost.
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Ensures compliance
Compliance regulations differ depending on where the data is stored. Cloud vendors are obligated to enforce compliance policies. However, the customer organization is audited for compliance. This means that all cloud integrations must provide this information to organizations, and it must be clear and transparent enough for both internal and external audits.
In fact, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in mid-2018, the term “data protection” took on new significance. It was one of many regulations enacted to ensure the security and privacy of organizational data, particularly from the perspective of the customer. Any company that uses cloud vendors is considered a ‘data controller.’
The company, not the vendor, is in charge of how the data is handled. Every data processor must ensure that all company data containing personally identifiable information (PII) that is processed in the cloud is secure. Data can only be transmitted from the EU to a preapproved area with comparable levels of security.
SLAs from the cloud provider for high levels of data protection.
Failure to follow these laws may result in lawsuits and large fines from the state.
Provides data security Another advantage of cloud data protection is the systematic definition of reconciling policies that are applied across all layers. Policies governing data storage, data dictionaries, access rules, as well as role-based permissions keep sensitive data secure.
Cloud data protection models usually secure information across multiple environments by enabling encryption and monitoring of data at every file and user level. This visibility enables IT and DevOps teams to take control of the complicated setup. Cloud data protection provides a step-by-step approach to removing any dangers to company data.
Modern cloud data protection solutions as well identify risks as well as data anomalies proactively, enabling security teams to thwart any cyber-attacks and malware injection attempts.
Oversees data storage
A cloud data protection model centralizes data monitoring and access across the cloud infrastructure. This entails documenting and reporting on all data manipulation and access. This enables IT teams to detect and eliminate rogue and suspicious data while also ensuring that data segments are stored with suitable controls in place based on the category they fall into.
Aids in the development of a disaster recovery plan
A disaster recovery plan is technically part of a company’s business continuity plan. However, it is also one of the data protection process’s prescribed goals. Cloud data protection processes enable:
- Backup copies are images of the live copies of data that are currently running the entire system. It is used when an application or system must be restarted.
- Recovery entails the recovery of the data as well as the servers and networks that allow the data to flow, thereby keeping the consistency of the data.
- Availability: Every data protection strategy must account for the maximum amount of downtime that a system can endure without disrupting daily business operations. This metric is met by maintaining the systems highly available, which is often accomplished by using similar and utterly pointless infrastructure components.
- Going to build a cloud data protection model forces businesses to address DRP solutions. DRP activities should fall under data protection because the first step in cloud data protection is to recognize critical data assets.
Aids in making informed decisions
One advantage of having an aerial view of data is that important components of this data can be recognized and shaped to meet business requirements. It can help leaders make more informed decisions, marketing teams fine-tune their target research, as well as finance teams, cut operational costs.
It is not remarkable that the data protection market is expected to exceed $158 billion by 2024, with the advantages of a cloud data protection model outweighing the obstacles of moving to cloud-based or hybrid solutions.
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The bottom line
It is important to note, however, that in order for a cloud data protection plan to be fully useful, it must be tailored to the organization while keeping scalability in mind. While it may appear intimidating at first, the financial, operational, as well as reputational benefits are too numerous to overlook. If your company lacks the resources to develop a cloud data protection strategy, it can look into data protection as a provider (DPaaS) for expert assistance.