Regulators are starting to demand proof of resilience from companies moving to the cloud, and for good reason, as shown by our new survey.
Well over half of IT, C-suite, and management leaders are uncertain their cloud operations are resilient enough to handle outages, cyberattacks, human error, and other risks, according to the 2022 state of Operational Resilience in the cloud report. A sobering 75% said that a lack of operational resilience undermines the benefits of moving to the cloud in the first place.
However, the survey also shows that most tech leaders are already operating in a cloud environment, and are also pushing for more investment in cloud resilience.
The benefits of cloud resilience
“Companies realize they have a tremendous amount to gain from cloud resilience - including increased efficiency and reduced losses,” says Simeon Klein, Cutover General Manager for Cloud. “They also have a new, mandatory, benefit to gain: making regulators happy.”
The 2022 state of Operational Resilience in the cloud report was commissioned by Cutover as part of an Amazon Web Services initiative on cloud migration. “This survey shows that companies are focusing more on Operational Resilience than ever but they need the right strategies and tools to make it happen,” says Iulia Knight, Cutover General Manager for Operational Resilience.
Key cloud resilience findings in the report
- 73% of leaders assumed that to some degree, operational resilience is automatic when moving infrastructure to the cloud, indicating they are underestimating the level of governance and structure that must be put in place in a cloud resilience strategy.
- 60% struggle to adapt business continuity and resilience plans from on-premises to the cloud.
- 99% agree that having operational resilience in the cloud is important and 83% recognize the need to increase cloud resilience spend.
- 81% say the frequency of outages has prompted most of them to focus on cloud resilience more than ever before.
- Security and compliance issues were cited as the main risks of failing to invest in cloud resilience.
- Just 21% of respondents say they have a well-defined resilience strategy that is reviewed regularly.
"In my conversations with senior executives, the interlinked themes of migrating and operating in the cloud, together with the demand for demonstrable operational resilience, come up all of the time as a key concern,” says Cutover Co-Founder and CEO Ky Nichol. “Hopefully, through sharing this information, we can help organizations and leaders systematically get ahead here."
Regulators zero in on cloud resilience
Resilience concerns have grown as new regulatory proposals have come on the scene, from the Bank of England’s new three-year deadline to improve operational resilience to the SEC’s recent proposals on managing cybersecurity risks. Australia is a little further away from imposing resilience mandates but recent legal decisions show regulators are moving toward adopting tougher standards around cyber resilience.
The survey, conducted before these new regulatory proposals and decisions, shows that 25% of UK respondents and 41% of Australian respondents do not consider cloud operational resilience “very important” (compared to 18% in the U.S.).
Those sentiments will likely shift as new resilience rules are enacted and the number of organizations increasing cloud operational resilience spending – 75% in our survey – will likely increase as well.
The cloud resiliency journey
The 2022 Operational Resilience in the cloud report offers an expansive view into where leaders are in their cloud resiliency journey and the challenges they face, as well as a look at what’s ahead for leaders and organizations as they strive to move more workloads into the cloud with greater stability and security.
The findings in this research are based on interviews with 409 C-suite executives, IT leaders, and product/project managers. Interviewees were based in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and represented financial services, technology, manufacturing, and other sectors in companies ranging from 500 employees to more than 5000 employees.
Read the full 2022 state of Operational Resilience in the cloud report