Risk appetite and budget constraints have the most substantial impact on how aggressive or conservative the cloud approach of an organization will be. Risk appetite is the amount and type of risk that an organization is willing to accept in pursuit of its objectives. Budget constraints are the limitations on the financial resources that an organization can allocate to its cloud initiatives. Both factors influence the organization’s strategic decisions on which cloud service models, deployment models, providers, and solutions to adopt, as well as the level of security, compliance, and performance to achieve. An organization with a high risk appetite and a large budget may opt for a more aggressive cloud approach, such as moving critical applications and data to a public cloud provider, while an organization with a low risk appetite and a small budget may opt for a more conservative cloud approach, such as keeping sensitive information on-premises or using a private cloud provider12.

References:

ISACA, Certificate of Cloud Auditing Knowledge (CCAK) Study Guide, 2021, p. 17-18.

CSA, Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) v4.0, 2021, p. 63.