Cloud Access Security Market Expected to Reach 25% of Companies by2016

When Brian Lillie, Chief Information Officer of datacenter company Equinix, askedemployees what technology they used, it wasn’t limited to the software provided by IT.“People were using Dropbox, Evernote, a whole range of cloud services with varyinglevels of risk. We knew we had to get a handle on everything.”

The company eventually purchased a solution that allows them visibility into all thecloud services people are using in order to shepherd them to lower-risk services.Information technology analyst firm Gartner defines the market as Cloud AccessSecurity Brokers, including solutions that discover all services in use, assess their risk,and provide security tools.

According to Gartner, by 2016 it’s expected that one out of every four enterprises willuse a CASB solution, up from just 1% in 2012. They project the use of cloud accesssecurity brokers will reduce the cost of securing cloud access by as much as 30% for theaverage company. That’s a substantial amount of money since many large enterprisesspend millions of dollars each year on securing their data.

As more employees bring an increasing number of cloud services to work, and installthem on devices brought to work, known as bring your own device or BYOD, many in ITare signaling this next wave as the bring your own cloud or BYOC era. Cloud AccessSecurity aims to protect data across a vast array of thousands of different cloud services,all with differing security controls and policies.

For Brian Lillie, it’s clear IT must work with the business to enable the safe adoption ofcloud. “IT lives to serve the business, not the other way around. We’re the chief enablerof the business.” Within Equinix, some people have started calling Lillie the ChiefEnablement Officer. It’s a riff on the job title Chief Information Officer, signaling IT ismore about information today, it’s about enabling business value.