Organisations continue to deal with growing data volumes, a trend which has only intensified with the rise of AI and GenAI. At the same time, data is being born and managed across multiple environments – on-premise and in the cloud. Companies continue to face the challenge of how to scale their cloud operations while ensuring data security and compliance across all environments.

This is where unified data platforms help. With data residing across on-premise and cloud environments, a true hybrid approach allows for a seamless, compliant movement of data and applications across environments, ensuring flexibility without sacrificing governance. Increased visibility makes it easier to apply rules to data consistently, keeping compliance intact from creation to destination.

With the introduction of regulations such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act( 2025) and NIS2( 2024), companies can no longer afford lenient attitudes to cybersecurity. High-profile data breaches have proven that compliance is no longer a box-ticking exercise, it is essential for maintaining customer trust and preventing significant reputational damage. For industries such as banking, healthcare and manufacturing, where organisations must now demonstrate compliance in their sharing, storage and use of data, having the right controls in place is critical.

Hybrid cloud requires the implementation of robust security measures, including encryption, tokenisation and data masking. This can mitigate risks, save time and reduce human error. Businesses also need workload observability to make data driven decisions about which workloads belong in the cloud and which should stay on-premise. This ensures cost efficiency, regulatory compliance and optimal security. Some data, particularly proprietary or highly sensitive information, may even need to be repatriated to onpremise or sovereign cloud solutions to stay within regulatory frameworks.

Adopting a modern data architecture is essential for companies to remain agile while also extracting business value from data assets spread across

Companies continue to face the challenge of how to scale their cloud operations while ensuring data security and compliance across all environments.

different cloud environments without risking safety. With a unified data platform underpinned by a data lakehouse, security is built in, ensuring controls are up to date and always‘ on’. This enables businesses to strike the right balance between scalability, security and compliance – allowing them to fully capitalise on the value of their data without compromising trust or regulatory obligations.

Consistent security and data governance means more users can access what is an enterprises most valuable asset, its data.

Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 88 | Page 31