Content creators in enterprise organizations in the UK & Ireland face numerous challenges when dealing with data across multiple cloud platforms. When it comes to storing data on different cloud platforms, there are various challenges to tackle, such as response variations, expensive acquisition of insights, slow speeds, and accuracy concerns
These noteworthy findings come from a report titled “A Silver Lining from Every Cloud” by SAS, an expert in analytics and AI. The report explores the obstacles faced by businesses that rely on various public and private cloud platforms to manage their data and applications. The research involved over 200 influential decision-makers in the UK & Ireland, specializing in data. Analytics, and cloud services, all representing companies with more than 3,000 employees.
One key takeaway from the report is that organizations, on average, operate across three private clouds platform. Almost half (42%) rely on at least two public cloud providers for their business applications, analytics, and critical data storage.
The decision-makers provided several reasons for operating over multiple clouds, including concerns about depending on a single cloud vendor, compliance and regulatory requirements, and fragmented systems resulting from acquisition strategies. However, the proliferation of cloud services poses significant operational challenges for most organizations. When it comes to extracting insights from their data.
These challenges include receiving different answers to the same question depending on the cloud where the data resides (64%), experiencing high costs (64%), encountering delays in obtaining insights (60%) and dealing with poor accuracy (48%). Additionally, 8 out of 10 businesses admit to needing regular data snapshots in a central repository. While 70% utilize different analytics platforms on each cloud, leading to the need for consolidating answers. This proves to be a time-consuming process.
Paul Jones, the Head of Technology at SAS UK & Ireland, acknowledges that these findings raise difficult questions for decision-makers. Who rely on their cloud environments to provide timely and accurate insights. He states, “The main challenge businesses face due to cloud proliferation is clear. They often struggle to establish a single version of the truth. Which questions the effectiveness of their insights. Almost two-thirds of decision-makers reported extended waiting times for insights and answers from their data when operating across multiple clouds. Nearly half admit to the inaccuracy of those insights. It is concerning that many businesses are not reaping the desired benefits from their substantial investments in cloud infrastructure. They are making critical business decisions based on flawed analytical insights.”
Only 30% of the survey participants stated that their cloud and analytics environment is adequately designed to address their specific problems. This implies that organizations with compliance and regulatory requirements may face significant challenges and dilemmas if their infrastructure is not revamped to align with their business needs.
To mitigate these challenges, adopting a single analytics platform like SAS Viya proves to be a viable solution. Such a platform can span multiple cloud environments, including on-premises data, and deliver high-speed analytical insights. While minimizing costs and ensuring a consistent and reliable version of the truth.
The study, carried out by Coleman Parkes between December 2022 and January 2023, was commissioned by SAS and followed the guidelines established by the Market Research Society. The respondents comprised 200 decision-makers in data. Analytics, and cloud services, were based in the UK and Ireland and worked for companies with over 3,000 employees.
