Why are customers dissatisfied with cloud providers?

With the increasing popularity of cloud infrastructures, the risks of confidential data leaks also increase. About two-thirds of the IT professionals surveyed (71%) confirmed that cloud computing today is of great importance to corporations, and more than two-thirds (78%) believe that the relevance of cloud computing will remain in two years. In addition, according to respondents, about 33% of all the needs of their organizations in information technology and data processing infrastructure canbe met today using cloud resources, and over the next two years this share will increase on average to 41%.

However, the majority of respondents (70%) agree that it is becoming increasingly difficult to comply with the requirements for maintaining data confidentiality and protecting them in a cloud environment. In addition, respondents noted that the types of corporatedata stored in the cloud such as email addresses, customer and customer data, and billing information are most at risk of leaks.

On average, the implementation of more than half of all cloud services at enterprises is carried out by third-party departments, not corporate IT departments, and on average about 44%of corporate data located in the cloud is not controlled or managed by IT departments. As a result of this, only 19% of respondents could declare their confidence that they are aware of all the cloud applications, platforms orinfrastructure services currently in use in their organizations.

Along with the lack of control over the installation and use of cloud services, there was no consensus among the respondents as to who is actually responsible for the security of data stored in the cloud. Thirty-five percent of respondents said that responsibility is shared between users and providers of cloud services, 33% believe that responsibility lies entirely with users, and 32% believe that the provider of cloud computing services is responsible for data security.

More than two-thirds (71%) ofrespondents said that it’s becoming more difficult to protect confidential user data stored in the cloud using traditional security tools and methods, andabout half (48%) say that it’s becoming more difficult to control or limit for end users access to cloud data. As a result, more than a third (34%) of ITprofessionals surveyed said that their organizations have already implemented corporate policies that require security mechanisms such as encryption to work with certain cloud computing services. Seventy-one (71) percent of respondentsindicated that encryption was possible or tokenization of confidential or other sensitive data is of great importance for them, and 79% believe that the importance of these technologies will increase over the next two years.

When asked what exactly is being done in their companies to protect data in the cloud, 43% of respondents said that their organizations use private networks to transmit data. About two fifths (39%) of respondents said that their companies use encryption, tokenization,and other cryptographic tools to protect data in the cloud. Another 33% of respondents do not know what security solutions are implemented in their organizations, and 29% said they use paid security services provided by their cloud service providers.

Respondents also believe thatmanaging corporate encryption keys is important for securing data in the cloud, given the growing number of key management and encryption platforms used by their companies. In particular, 54% of respondents said that their organizations retain control over encryption keys when storing data in the cloud. However, 45% of respondents said that they store their encryption keys in a software form, in the same place where the data itself is stored, and only 27% store the keys in more secure environments, for example, on hardwaredevices.

Regarding access to data stored inthe cloud, sixty-eight (68) percent of respondents say that managing user accounts in a cloud-based environment is becoming more difficult, withsixty-two (62) percent of respondents saying that they have access to the cloud in organizations provided for third parties. About half (46 percent) ofrespondents said that their companies use multi-factor authentication to protect third-party access to data stored in a cloud environment. About thesame number (48 percent) of respondents said that their companies use multi - factor authentication technologies , including to protect the access of their employees to the cloud.

Why are customers dissatisfied withcloud providers?

According to a Forrester report (summer 2015), the lack of transparency from cloud providers is a major source of customer dissatisfaction [2] .

Opaque cloud

A recent study by Forrester Consulting shows that many organizations believe that cloud service providers do not provide them with enough information about interacting with the cloud, and this harms their business.

In addition to insufficienttransparency, there are other factors that reduce the enthusiasm for moving to the cloud: this is the level of service for customers, additional costs and adaptation during migration (on-boarding). Organizations are very fond of the cloud, but not of its suppliers - in any case, not as much.

The study was commissioned by iland,a provider of enterprise cloud hosting, conducted during May and covered professionals in the field of infrastructure and ongoing support from 275 organizations in the US , UK and Singapore.

“Among all the complexities oftoday's cloud, there are annoying flaws,” writes Lilac Schoenbeck, vice president of product support and marketing, iland. “Such important metadata isnot communicated, significantly hampering the adoption of the cloud, and yet organizations make growth plans based on the assumption of unlimited cloud resources.”

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Inattention to customers

Apparently, many users of the cloud do not feel the same individual approach.

So, 44% of respondents said that their provider does not know their company and does not understand their business needs, and 43% believe that if their organization was simply larger,then the supplier would probably pay more attention to them. In short, they feel the chill of an ordinary deal buying cloud services, and they don't likeit.

And one more thing: there is one practice pointed out by a third of the companies surveyed, which also instillsa sense of pettiness in the transaction — they are charged for the slightestquestion or incomprehensibility.