The Covid19 pandemic forced everyone to radically increase their reliance on computers, mobile phones, apps and the cloud. As a result, millions migrated from the office to home-working, with remote and hybrid scenarios remaining in place today, long after the initial crest of the most significant health crisis in generations.
Before the pandemic, there was a skills shortage in the cog of the virtual wheel—cloud administration, a highly complex, massively time-consuming field driven by security, where the skills learning curve is similar to graduating from university.
“The pandemic galvanized the shortage of cloud management resources because it disrupted the way people work,” said Michelle Findlay, Growth Marketing Manager of StackZone, a company that drives cloud management capabilities through AWS optimization, automation, cloud ops, security and compliance.
“Everyone works on collaborative apps now. We work from anywhere, bringing our work culture with us. Most business communication is achieved on phones, tablet devices and laptops. We tether to Wi-Fi networks and mobile hotspots, working off apps to enable our collaboration.
“Most apps are hosted in a cloud environment, so they need the correct level of access controls and layers of security and compliance. Cloud-based apps are typically complex and resource hungry. They need skillfully managed IT architecture to perform seamlessly. Robust cloud management requires highly-skilled cloud managers.”
StackZone is a self-service cloud management platform for AWS. It simplifies cloud management, reduces AWS running costs and automates the adoption of security and compliance best practices. In addition, Stackzone’s automated configuration rules reduce the time and skill required to administer the cloud securely.
StackZone is a secure, cost-efficient cloud governance solution for multi-account AWS environments. It enables AWS cloud services to be designed, deployed, configured and managed automatically.
By providing cloud expertise and AWS consultancy bundled into a software package, StackZone addresses the cloud administration skills shortage.
Globally IT developer skills shortage rages on, with roles unfilled for lengthy periods and a dramatic escalation of salary costs. IT leaders who test cloud management skills before hiring developers will be shocked by up to 95% of prospective applicants failing. There are even whisperings of developers who convincingly turn up to two-to-three “full-time” developer jobs. The rapid escalation in global cyber attacks also means a market-wide void in experienced cybersecurity personnel, pushing higher wage costs.
In a market where IT skills are at a premium, StackZone’s cloud automations enable IT leaders to up their game as they struggle to navigate the steep learning curve of cloud administration.
Initially focused on AWS users, StackZone is gearing to implement a bold strategy targeting Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform organizations, too.
Under development for the past two years, StackZone grew through the pandemic as organizations pivoted to remote work and the global reliance on cloud computing escalated, according to Gaston Silbestein, the company’s co-founder and CRO.
StackZone emerged from a cloud consultancy team that developed a refined strategy to streamline, centralize and simplify the management of cloud environments. As automation increased during the pandemic, StackZone’s vision took shape. Through June 2022, the startup raised $1.9 million in seed funds and continues to scale its innovative platform.
StackZone is ISO 27001 compliant. They had to adopt the highest security standards for IT processes to achieve this. As avid security evangelists, they advocate their high-security standards. StackZone doesn’t require clients to share account access credentials. The team has the need to rely on Administration credentials from client accounts because the system doesn’t store any sensitive data.
StackZone’s emphasis on security drives cloud compliance levels, and it could not be more timely.
According to Statista, the average cost of a 2022 data breach in the U.S. was $9.44 million, up from $9.05 million in 2021.
In the healthcare field alone:
The number of people affected by data breaches more than tripled from 14 million in 2018 to 45 million in 2021.
The average cost of a data breach in healthcare increased by nearly USD 1 million to reach USD 10.10 million.
The average cost of a mega data breach, which involves 50-60 million healthcare records, was a whopping $387 million.
All this unfolds in a cloud marketplace where the stakes could not be higher for cloud providers, administrators and their clients.
Technology leaders need help to keep up with the staggering pace of change within cloud computing. StackZone’s innovative approach is leveling the playing field for firms anxious to avoid falling prey to the increasing number of cyber attacks.
An estimated 55 percent of enterprise workloads in the cloud, and 88 percent of cloud breaches are caused by human error. StackZone’s self-remediations significantly strengthen security and compliance levels within hours of deployment. This enables StackZone users to reduce their risk of a data breach or infringement of industry compliance regulations.
An essential feature of StackZone is its deployment speed. It realigns compliance and security settings with best practices within just a few hours, potentially saving months of config management. In addition, its built-in “blueprints” enable you to apply compliance recommendations tailored to your particular industry. Cloud managers can also apply pre-configured regulatory standards for healthcare, (HIPAA), finance, (PCI, DSS) cybersecurity (SOC) and Machine Learning (ML) compliance standards in minutes.
StackZone’s 56 self-healing remediation rules automatically activate control policies that improve security and align organizations to cloud best practices. In addition, clients can monitor their compliance by activating over 200 policy rules and launching compliant workloads from StackZone’s service catalog portfolios. This has reduced cloud operational costs considerably for many organizations using StackZone.
Visit www.stackzone.com to learn more.
