Written by: Adrian Taylor, VP of EMEA at A10 Networks

Ecommerce continues to be one of the most fast-paced and competitive global industries, with industry-watchers estimating that online sales will constitute a fifth of all retail sales worldwide by the end of 2022. As vendors strive to capture their share of market growth, they need to offer exceptional customer experiences that build loyalty and repeat revenue. However, delivering omnichannel excellence puts considerable pressure on infrastructure as site traffic increases and consumer expectations rise.

At the same time, the sector is heavily targeted by cybercriminals seeking to disrupt, extort and damage online retail businesses. Consequently, striking a balance between operational efficiency, cost control, security, and customer satisfaction is a complex challenge.

To resolve the tension between availability, performance, efficiency, and security, most e-commerce providers are accelerating their cloud transition programs with many opting for a multi-cloud strategy. These decisions are driven by the changing landscape in which they are operating and the nature and intensity of the cyber threats they face.

Security concerns: Brand and reputation are crown jewels for e-commerce companies

Ecommerce providers are acutely aware that trust is intrinsic to building customer loyalty. Anything that damages reputations and threatens customer confidence has a long-term impact on revenues. It’s not surprising, therefore, that cyber defacement and brand damage are top concerns for 62% and 49% of the businesses surveyed respectively. Linked to this is concern over user data theft and credit card theft, identified as a top concern by 52% and 36% of respondents.

Away from direct public-facing threats, more than one-third of companies cited DDoS attacks as a key concern. This is not surprising, given the increase in DDoS attacks and the potential loss of revenue. The report indicated that some e-commerce providers are struggling to resolve this issue, with one in ten reporting that they had lost availability due to a DDoS attack. Given that this directly affects revenue generation, and creates a poor customer experience, organizations should focus on ensuring that their DDoS mitigation strategy and tools are effective.

Performance pitfalls: high traffic and security trade-offs are impacting uptime

On the performance side of the equation, 86% of the e-commerce businesses we surveyed reported a significant increase in traffic. This is undoubtedly a result of the pivot to online purchasing made by millions during the pandemic, but in an industry well-used to handling seasonal spikes it was surprising that businesses reported downtime caused by traffic spikes as a top issue in the past year. This is potentially related to the heavier performance demands from new technology standards, such as the encryption required by Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS).

Priorities have changed in a multi-cloud environment

Managing performance and mitigating security threats have a different complexion in a multi-cloud environment compared to traditional on-premises systems. Our research found that the complexity of multi-cloud IT has reshaped the priorities of IT leaders.

While traditional e-commerce priorities such as disaster recovery and the ability to scale to meet seasonal demand remain important, they have dropped down the list as the resource-intensive nature of multi-cloud management becomes apparent.

Consequently, e-commerce IT leaders are seeking solutions that provide control and visibility. 60% cited centralized management and analytics as a key requirement for successful multi-cloud adoption. Consistent application delivery and security came a close second, while 46% sought efficient automation.

Adopting a polynimbus approach

As e-commerce companies continue their journey to the cloud, there’s no doubt that focus is needed to resolve the identified challenges and ensure that they gain all the benefits of multi-cloud flexibility, without losing control and visibility over critical elements of the environment.

Here, a polynimbus approach to application delivery helps simplify management and automate operations in multi-cloud deployments. It also centralizes security policy enforcement, helping organizations answer governance and compliance demands.