The Cyber Defense eMagazine January Edition for 2024

According to Radware’s 2023 Application Security in a Multi-Cloud World report, two hundred
organizations weighed in on this trend, confirming a shift in their security strategies. According to the
2023 data, only 24% of them said they deployed applications on multiple cloud environments. This is
down from the 58% of organizations that said they deployed applications across two or more public cloud
environments in our 2022 survey. And while 21% of organizations were using three or more cloud
environments in 2022, only a negligible percentage seem to be doing so in 2023.
Why companies are making a u-turn
So why are companies making this shift? There are several compelling factors.
Security is one of them. At the same time that multi-cloud deployments are showing signs of decline,
concerns about security threats are on the rise. The inability to achieve consistent security policies across
multi-clouds topped the list as a problem or extreme problem for 56% of the organizations surveyed in
2023 compared to just 26% in 2022. And security mistakes are costly. According to the survey, downtime
due to a successful application DDoS attack costs organizations an average of $6,130 per minute.
Other security areas respondents ranked as problems or extreme problems included protection between
platforms (61% in 2023 vs. 38% in 2022), unified visibility (58% in 2023 vs. 41% in 2022) and centralized
management (46% in 2023 vs. 34% in 2022).
Security is not, however, the only factor causing companies to rethink their security strategies and move
applications and data back on-premise. Other considerations include:
Cost management: While the cloud’s pay-as-you-go model can be cost-effective for variable workloads,
it can lead to unexpected expenses when usage spikes. Where predictable workloads are concerned, it
can be more cost-efficient to invest in on-premise infrastructure over the long term, rather than paying
ongoing cloud service fees.
Performance and latency: Applications requiring low-latency responses or intense computational power
can encounter performance bottlenecks in a cloud environment. Running such workloads on-premise
can offer more consistent performance and responsiveness.
Data sovereignty and security: Industries with strict regulatory requirements often need to ensure that
sensitive data is stored and processed within specific geographic regions to comply with data sovereignty
laws. Maintaining control over that data and having physical access to it offers a level of security and
compliance that cloud solutions cannot always guarantee.
Complexity and vendor lock-in: Adopting multiple cloud services and platforms can create technical and
security complexities. Additionally, concerns about vendor lock-in and potential difficulties in migrating
between cloud providers can cause some organizations to consider bringing workloads back in-house.
Changing priorities: As strategic priorities evolve and shift, some workloads can end up being better
suited for an on-premise environment. This could be driven by an organizational desire for tighter control,
specific performance requirements, or changing business needs.
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