DATA EXPOSURE RISKS IN HYBRID VS. MULTI-CLOUD MIGRATIONS: ACOMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Hybrid and multi-cloud have increasingly emerged as a dominant trend of adopting better flexibility, scalability
and control for data among organizations. A hybrid cloud is a combination of on-premise hardware or software
with the more flexible and open public and/or private clouds, covering a range of options for workloads based
on data sensitivity, regulatory constraints, and case of operation. While multi-cloud architectures split
resources among multiple Providers, multi-cloud in turn restricts businesses from vendor lock-in, offering
flexible services to different workloads. Nevertheless, all methodologies present a different level of data
exposure which may compromise the integrity, privacy, and security of data.
This research takes a look at the challenges associated with migrating into hybrid and later multi-cloud,
comparing the self-evident risks to data exposure that arise from each approach. Data transfer between onpremises and cloud environments is a common problem for hybrid cloud models, which combined with
misconfigurations and uneven access policies, increases the risk of breaches. On the other hand, security policy
management for multi-cloud setups becomes too cumbersome to handle on a single environment and often lead
to security gaps and more compliance issues. Risking these factors are very important as firms shape migration
to the cloud strategies. In this paper, we are interested in understanding the best security practices and
mitigation approaches so that we can provide practical insights to companies looking at how to protect sensitive
data and how to make an educated choice on a cloud migration strategy.