According to Gartner, 38% of companies that do not plan to use the public cloud state their reason is due to security concerns. Some organizations that leverage a hybrid approach can strike a balance between meeting user demands for availability and flexibility without sacrificing security.

Organizations should use different tools designed to manage the security of virtual machines as it requires a different level of vulnerability management and patching processes. And without the traditional, physical blinking indicator lights, virtual machines present even more complex, dynamic challenges.

Although SaaS applications increasingly offer more security, control and functionality, they are primarily under control of end users. That means minimal transparency and little to no customization. To keep things even more interesting, many organizations are using hundreds, if not thousands, of apps.