FINAL WORD leaders . While traditional e-commerce priorities such as Disaster Recovery and the ability to scale to meet seasonal demand remain important , they have dropped down the list as the resource-intensive nature of multi-cloud management becomes apparent .
More than half of the e-commerce leaders we surveyed said management complexity and crosscloud security were top challenges , while achieving visibility across cloud data centres was a problem for 44 %. A similar proportion struggled to manage compliance and governance , and controlling costs was also an issue for 41 %.
Adrian Taylor , VP of EMEA , A10 Networks
Performance pitfalls
High traffic and security trade-offs are impacting uptime . On the performance side of the equation , 86 % of the e-commerce businesses we surveyed reported a significant increase in traffic . This is undoubtedly
a result of the pivot to online purchasing made by millions during the pandemic , but in an industry wellused to handling seasonal spikes it was surprising that businesses reported downtime caused by traffic spikes as a top issue in the past year . This is potentially related to the heavier performance demands from new technology standards , such as the encryption required by Perfect Forward Secrecy ( PFS ).
Another sign of the tension between performance and security is evident in the 12 % of surveyed companies that had recorded slower traffic caused by security threat prevention or remediation . There clearly remains a trade-off between delivering a seamless , lightning-fast customer experience and ensuring that those customers are protected over the longer term .
Priorities have changed in a multicloud environment
Consequently , e-commerce IT leaders are seeking solutions that provide control and visibility . 60 % cited centralised management and analytics as a key requirement for successful multi-cloud adoption . Consistent application delivery and security came a close second , while 46 % sought efficient automation .
Alongside these practical considerations , e-commerce IT leaders are keeping a close eye on cost control ; 81 % said cost savings were the primary motivation for investing in new technology . This underlines that the move to multi-cloud must not incur additional management costs .
Adopting a polynimbus approach
As e-commerce companies continue their journey to the cloud , there ’ s no doubt that focus is needed to resolve the identified challenges and ensure that they gain all the benefits of multi-cloud flexibility , without losing control and visibility over critical elements of the environment .
Here , a polynimbus approach to application delivery helps simplify management and automate operations in multi-cloud deployments . It also centralises security policy enforcement , helping organisations answer governance and compliance demands .
Managing performance and mitigating security threats have a different complexion in a multi-cloud environment compared to traditional on-premises systems . Our research found that the complexity of multi-cloud IT has reshaped the priorities of IT
Implementing an Application Delivery Controller ( ADC ) into a multi-cloud environment ensures that features , services and security are consistent across multiple cloud environments and means organisations can choose the cloud providers that deliver the specific tools and benefits they need , without adding to the management burden .
In turn , this means they can better protect against security threats and increase performance and availability to protect customers and brand reputation . This should be a priority as e-commerce companies prepare to capture their share of the retail market opportunity that lies ahead . p
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