Digital Transformation has a huge impact on all organizations that move either some or all their IT workloads to the cloud. However, there are several challenges that come in the way of successfully adopting the cloud. One such important challenge is ‘Compliance’.

Why Does Compliance Matter?
Cutting straight to the point, the fact is that different industry regulations govern how organizations should manage and secure sensitive data. So, depending on the company’s industry and service type, compliance with regulations becomes a must. Such regulations enforce guidelines, practices, and policies that help in protecting peoples’ sensitive data and aims at improving information security.

What are the Repercussions of Taking Compliance For Granted?
Non-compliance usually results in hefty fines, lawsuits, and damage to organizations’ reputations. This is a strictly followed rule. In fact, you’d be surprised to know that during the pandemic, companies became more cautious about shifting some of their services to the cloud. And the only reason behind it was that they couldn’t risk the cost of neglecting compliance.

Must Read: Distributed Cloud Computing – Its Challenges and Opportunities

Top 3 Compliance Issues and How to Overcome Them
Knowing more about the major compliance issues in cloud computing and the ways to overcome them can better equip businesses to benefit from successful and secure cloud implementations. So, let’s begin the discussion.

1. Responsibility for Data Security
From the top three compliance issues in cloud computing, the first one is data security responsibility. While some organizations think that shared responsibility models mean shared responsibility for compliance, they must know that the responsibility for applications, platform, and infrastructure security differs between different service models. This is why data security is always your own responsibility.

Now, here are a few solutions that can help you in keeping a check on your security concerns:
Awareness: All IT decision-makers must fully be aware of the organization’s constant responsibility for data security and compliance even when you’re using computing resources that belong to a cloud provider. Awareness of relevant regulations also comes in handy.
Planning for Compliance: All cloud infrastructure decisions must be taken with compliance in consideration.

Interesting Read: How Does Digital Integration Power Mainframes?

2. Diverse Cloud Implementations
According to Flexera’s 2021 State of the Cloud Report, it was found that enterprises use an average of 2.6 public clouds and 2.7 private clouds. The diversity of cloud services available from multiple providers is what typically results in a diverse multi-cloud implementation which further adds to the complexity of ensuring compliance because there is a lot of movement.

To get over this challenge, here are solutions that you can try:
Monitoring the Cloud: Cloud monitoring platforms or tools provide transparency of the level of monitoring that is needed to keep track of sensitive data and maintain compliance within a multi-cloud implementation.
Encryption: A complex multi-cloud setup is likely to be affected by issues with unencrypted data in transit. This is why it is critical to always enforce encryption for data, whether in motion or at rest.

3. Improper Access Controls
A lot of breaches of compliance regulations are caused due to improper access controls. This usually happens when the wrong person gets access to your sensitive data.

Here are solutions to overcome this challenge:
Identity and Access Management: A robust IAM solution can help you improve data security in the cloud by giving you control over who and what interacts with your data from a single dashboard.
Least Privileges: Users of a cloud system should only get access to the data that they need to do their job. This is a key part of avoiding compliance issues.

Conclusion: Cloud adoption surely amplifies compliance challenges but that does not need to be an obstacle to successfully implement the cloud. This is why it is important for all organizations to know the major cloud compliance issues and their solutions that can help in building a good foundation.

Recommended Read: The Future of SaaS

For more articles like “How to Overcome Compliance Issues in Cloud Computing”, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.