The CP List: 20 Top Cloud Storage Providers

Apple (iCloud)

Bradley cited Apple iCloud Drive as a successful cloud storage provider.

Andrew Howard, Kudelski Security‘s global chief technology officer, said in an era of increased focus on user and data privacy, providers must enable their customers to comply with a growing and varied list of compliance regimes, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

“Relatedly, data-residency requirements limit the market opportunities for storage providers [that[ cannot guarantee that data remains within a particular country or geography,” he said. “Standalone storage providers also have a more difficult time competing against the collaboration capabilities offered by the leading platforms, such as Office 365 or G Suite.”

Arcserve

Lipps cited Arcserve as a successful cloud backup provider. A successful solution is one that is secure, easy to consume with API integration and cost-effective, he said.

“Organizations today are more global than ever, which complicates matters for cloud providers,” Tonthat said. “New and disparate mandatory laws can present significant challenges; take for example the GDPR in Europe. This action was rather burdensome to hyperscale cloud providers [that] typically spread data over huge areas and geographies. These laws mandating data is stored in the territory it was created puts a burden on a provider to have an established data center in said territory should they want to continue to service customers in that region. This may lead to higher costs of operations driving out profitability.”

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