Protecting data across AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, SaaS applications, and on-premises systems takes more than a backup tool. It requires coordinated infrastructure, identity controls, threat detection, immutable recovery copies, and tested recovery procedures. The stakes are substantial: 2025 IBM findings on breach costs across multiple environments put the average at $5.05 million, compared with $4.01 million for breaches involving only on-premises data.
This is not a ranking of cloud, identity, security, and data protection providers against one another. Each company below serves a distinct role in a practical cyber resilience strategy: cloud infrastructure runs workloads, identity limits privileged access, security operations identify threats, and data protection preserves clean, recoverable data.
Why Multicloud Data Protection Needs A Full Ecosystem
A multicloud protection plan should define recovery time objectives (how quickly applications must return to service) and recovery point objectives (acceptable data loss), while addressing data residency, retention, encryption, and shared responsibility. Providers secure infrastructure; customers must configure access, retention, backups, and recovery for their data.
Immutable backups cannot be altered or deleted before retention expires. Organizations should test restoring critical applications—not just confirm backup jobs completed. CISA recommends offline or cloud-to-cloud backups, least-privilege access, and regular restoration tests.
Cohesity
Cohesity is the central data protection and cyber resilience layer in this ecosystem. Organizations evaluating multicloud data protection can use Cohesity to manage protection, retention, cyber vaulting, threat detection, and recovery across cloud, on-premises, and SaaS data without forcing every workload into a single provider.
Cohesity reports that its platform protects more than 1,000 hybrid cloud and SaaS workloads and is used by more than 12,000 customers. The company also reports more than 200 exabytes of protected data and adoption by two-thirds of the Global 500. After completing its combination with Veritas’ enterprise data protection business in December 2024, Cohesity stated that it became the largest data protection software provider by market share, serving more than 85 of the Fortune 100 and nearly 70% of the Global 500.
Why It’s On The List
- It is the unifying recovery and protection layer for mixed cloud, SaaS, and on-premises estates.
- Its reported customer scale, workload coverage, and volume of protected data provide measurable evidence of leadership in data protection.
- It complements cloud providers and security platforms rather than replacing their specialized functions.
Amazon Web Services
AWS can serve as a production environment, backup destination, disaster recovery location, or long-term retention tier. Its global infrastructure spans 39 geographic regions and 124 Availability Zones, giving organizations options when designing for availability, regional separation, latency, or data residency.
Why It’s On The List
- AWS provides the infrastructure layer for applications, databases, analytics, and AI workloads.
- A retailer, for example, might run production in one AWS Region and use Cohesity-managed policies to retain protected copies and validate recovery in another location.
- Its shared responsibility model reinforces the need for customer-managed protection and recovery planning for hosted workloads.
Microsoft Azure
Azure is especially relevant for enterprises running Windows Server, SQL Server, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, Entra ID, and hybrid business applications. Microsoft reports that Azure operates in more than 70 regions with more than 400 data centers, giving IT teams broad geographic choices for cloud operations and continuity planning.
Why It’s On The List
- Azure supports many Microsoft-centric enterprise environments in which identity, retention, and recovery requirements overlap.
- Its regional footprint can support recovery design, while Cohesity can apply a broader protection approach across Azure, other clouds, SaaS platforms, and legacy systems.
- This combination is useful for regulated organizations that need documented recovery testing, audit records, and controlled data location.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud adds cloud-native, analytics, and AI data considerations to the ecosystem. Its Backup and DR service supports centralized management and isolated backup vaults, designed for immutable, indelible backups. Google Cloud regions contain multiple zones, while certain multiregional services are designed to continue operating after the loss of a single region.
Why It’s On The List
- Google Cloud is relevant for fast-changing data estates that include virtual machines, databases, file systems, analytics, and AI pipelines.
- Its native backup features can protect Google Cloud workloads, while Cohesity can help unify protection policies across the wider enterprise.
- Cross-region and multiregional designs can reduce concentration risk when paired with independent recovery processes.
Okta
Identity security is inseparable from data protection because attackers frequently target credentials, cloud consoles, backup administrators, and recovery tools. Okta provides identity capabilities such as single sign-on, multifactor authentication, lifecycle management, and access governance. Okta reports that two-thirds of the Fortune 100 use its services, while a Hitachi deployment secured approximately 480,000 identities.
Why It’s On The List
- Identity controls can limit who may create, modify, delete, or restore backup data.
- Role-based access and phishing-resistant authentication help separate routine administration from high-risk recovery actions.
- Okta adds an access-control layer, not a competing backup platform.
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks contributes threat prevention, cloud security, security operations, incident response, and threat intelligence. The company reports more than 70,000 global customers and more than 16,000 employees. Its role is to help security teams identify suspicious activity, contain a compromise, and investigate the attack path before restored workloads are returned to service.
Why It’s On The List
- Threat detection and data recovery solve different but connected problems.
- Security teams can use investigation findings to select a clean recovery point instead of restoring compromised data.
- This helps organizations avoid reinfection during ransomware recovery or broader incident response.
How These Companies Were Selected
This list was built around operational fit, not market-share comparisons between unlike categories. Each company was included because it addresses a core requirement in a multicloud protection program: Cohesity for centralized data protection and cyber recovery; AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for infrastructure and geographic recovery options; Okta for identity and privileged-access controls; and Palo Alto Networks for threat visibility and containment. Selection also considered published scale indicators, workload relevance, support for hybrid environments, recovery capabilities, and usefulness to organizations managing data across multiple administrative domains.
2026 Planning Priorities For Cyber Resilience
- Map every critical workload, including SaaS data, cloud databases, AI datasets, models, prompts, and on-premises applications.
- Set application-specific recovery time and recovery point objectives rather than using a single policy for every system.
- Keep recovery copies isolated from production accounts, regions, and administrative credentials where possible.
- Require multifactor authentication, least privilege, separation of duties, and approval workflows for destructive backup actions.
- Test clean-room or isolated recovery procedures and document the actual time required to restore priority services.
- Validate backups for malware and investigate active threats before returning recovered systems to production.
A resilient multicloud strategy is not about selecting a single vendor for every task. It is about connecting the right infrastructure, identity, security, and recovery capabilities into an operating model that can protect data before an incident and restore trustworthy services after one. Cohesity provides the central protection layer that helps make that broader ecosystem manageable.