's Data Security Posts
Petabyte Scale is a Security Requirement (Not a Feature): The Hidden Cost of Inefficient DSPM
Petabyte Scale is a Security Requirement (Not a Feature): The Hidden Cost of Inefficient DSPM
As organizations scramble to secure their sprawling cloud environments and deploy AI, many are facing a stark realization: handling petabyte-scale data is now a basic security requirement. With sensitive information multiplying across multiple clouds, SaaS, and AI-driven platforms, security leaders can't treat true data security at scale as a simple add-on or upgrade.
At the same time, speeding up digital transformation means higher and less visible operational costs for handling this data surge. Older Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) tools, especially those boasting broad, indiscriminate scans as evidence of their scale, are saddling organizations with rising cloud bills, slowdowns, and dangerous gaps in visibility. The costs of securing petabyte-scale data are now economic and technical, demanding efficiency instead of just scale. Sentra solves this with a highly-efficient cloud-native design, delivering 10x lower cloud compute costs.
Why Petabyte Scale is a Security Requirement
Data environments have exploded in both size and complexity. For Fortune 500 companies, fast-growing SaaS providers, and global organizations, data exists across public and hybrid clouds, business units, regions, and a stream of new applications.
Regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and rules from the SEC now demand current data inventories and continuous proof of risk management. In this environment, defending data at the petabyte level is now essential. Failing to classify and monitor this data efficiently means risking compliance and losing business trust. Security teams are feeling the strain. I meet security teams everyday and too many of them still struggle with data visibility and are already seeing the cracks forming in their current toolset as data scales.
The Hidden Cost of Inefficient DSPM: API Calls and Egress Bills
How DSPM tools perform scanning and discovery drives the real costs of securing petabyte-scale data. Some vendors highlight their capacity to scan multiple petabytes daily. But here's the reality: scanning everything, record by record, relying on huge numbers of API calls, becomes very expensive as your data estate grows.
Every API call can rack up costs, and all the resulting data egress and compute add up too. Large organizations might spend tens of thousands of dollars each month just to track what’s in their cloud. Even worse, older "full scan" DSPM strategies jam up operations with throttling, delays, and a flood of alerts that bury real risk. These legacy approaches simply don’t scale, and organizations relying on them end up paying more while knowing less.
Cyera’s "Petabyte Scale" Claims: At What Cloud Cost?
Cyera promotes its tool as an AI-native, agentless DSPM that can scan as much as 2 petabytes daily . While that’s an impressive technical achievement, the strategy of scanning everything leads directly to massive cloud infrastructure costs: frequent API hits, heavy egress, and big bills from AWS, Azure, and GCP.
At scale, these charges don’t just appear on invoices, they can actually stop adoption and limit security’s effectiveness. Cloud operations teams face API throttling, slow results, and a surge in remediation tickets as risks go unfiltered. In these fast-paced environments, recognizing the difference between a real threat and harmless data comes down to speed. The Bedrock Security blog points out how inefficient setups buckle under this weight, leaving teams stuck with lagging visibility and more operational headaches.
Sentra’s 10x Efficiency: Optimized Scanning for Real-World Scale
Sentra takes another route to manage the costs of securing petabyte-scale data. By combining agentless discovery with scanning guided by context and metadata, Sentra uses pattern recognition and an AI-driven clustering algorithm designed to detect machine-generated content—such as log files, invoices, and similar data types. By intelligently sampling data within each cluster, Sentra delivers efficient scanning while reducing scanning costs.
This approach enables data scanning to be prioritized based on risk and business value, rather than wasting time and money scanning the same data over and over again, skipping unnecessary API calls, lowering egress, and keeping cloud bills in check.
Large organizations gain a 10x efficiency edge: quicker classification of data, instant visibility into actual threats, lower operational expenses, and less demand on the network. By focusing attention only where it matters, Sentra matches data security posture management to the demands of current cloud growth and regulatory requirements.
This makes it possible for organizations to hit regulatory and audit targets without watching expenses spiral or opening up security gaps.Sentra offers multiple sampling levels, Quick (default), Moderate, Thorough, and Full, allowing customers to tailor their scanning strategy to balance cost and accuracy. For example, a highly regulated environment can be configured for a full scan, while less-regulated environments can use more efficient sampling. Petabyte-scale security gives the user complete control of their data enterprise and turns into something operationally and financially sustainable, rather than a technical milestone with a hidden cost.
Efficiency is Non-Negotiable
Fortune 500 companies and digital-first organizations can’t treat efficiency as optional. Inefficient DSPM tools pile on costs, drain resources, and let vulnerabilities slip through, turning their security posture into a liability once scale becomes a factor. Sentra’s platform shows that efficiency is security: with targeted scanning, real context, and unified detection and response, organizations gain clarity and compliance while holding down expenses.
Don’t let your data protection approach crumble under petabyte-scale pressure. See what Sentra can do, reduce costs, and keep essential data secure - before you end up responding to breaches or audit failures.
Conclusion
Securing data at the petabyte level isn't some future aspiration - it's the standard for enterprises right now. Treating it as a secondary feature isn’t just shortsighted; it puts your company at risk, financially and operationally.
The right DSPM architecture brings efficiency, not just raw scale. Sentra delivers real-time, context-rich security posture with far greater efficiency, so your protection and your cloud spending can keep up with your growing business. Security needs to grow along with scale. Rising costs and new risks shouldn’t grow right alongside it.
Want to see how your current petabyte security posture compares? Schedule a demo and see Sentra’s efficiency for yourself.