Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), a prominent connectivity cloud company, has unveiled a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting that highlights the increasing demand among businesses to connect all aspects of their operations while maintaining control over security, productivity, and competitive growth. To address this emerging challenge, Cloudflare is introducing the concept of the “connectivity cloud” – a unified platform of cloud-native services designed to help enterprises regain control over their increasingly complex and sprawling technology and data.
Key Points
Cloudflare is launching the concept of the “connectivity cloud” to address the need for comprehensive connectivity and security in modern businesses.
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, emphasizes that many major cloud providers capture data and limit data portability, whereas Cloudflare aims to offer an alternative that facilitates seamless connectivity and protection for all online assets.
Challenges Faced by Organizations
Organizations worldwide have seen a significant rise in the adoption of various applications, often SaaS-based, to support hybrid work environments. However, this has led to new risks and challenges, with nearly 40% of organizations feeling that they are losing control over their IT and security environments.
The top factors contributing to this loss of control include the increasing number of applications (66%), application distribution across various locations (62%), the shift from on-premises to the cloud (54%), and the transition to remote or hybrid workforces (49%).
IT and security teams are now burdened with more complex responsibilities, many of which were not part of their purview five years ago. For instance, they are now responsible for ensuring the security of all in-office, remote, or hybrid workers, managing and securing applications in public cloud environments, and securing data in SaaS environments.
Managing and securing public cloud environments and data in SaaS environments has become significantly more complex since 2020, according to 30% of IT and security teams.
Impact of Ignoring Challenges
Neglecting the challenges posed by the changing landscape can have a real impact on businesses. Challenges include managing a growing business landscape while ensuring team productivity and security, addressing the increasing number and types of users, and dealing with a growing attack surface area.
Benefits of a Connectivity Cloud:
A significant majority (98%) of organizations believe that a connectivity cloud providing secure, high-performance “any-to-any” connectivity would be highly valuable for today’s businesses. Such a solution is expected to accelerate digital transformation, reduce the attack surface area, increase productivity, improve time to market, and boost overall revenue.
Cloudflare’s introduction of the connectivity cloud concept aims to address the pressing need for comprehensive and secure connectivity in the modern business landscape, offering an alternative to traditional cloud providers that prioritize data captivity. This concept is expected to provide significant benefits in terms of digital transformation, risk reduction, and increased productivity for organizations.
