Cloud Computing Requires Changing Your Mindset on Security
If I had to do it over again, I would have inserted a few snarky questions into our cloud computing survey that came out this week. They would have been added around the section about security, seeing as security concerns topped the worries IT pros and leaders had over cloud computing.
Here's a couple of questions:
Do you have a personal account with Amazon where you enter in your credit card information?
Has your business done Web advertising through Google?
It's funny that I can't remember the last major data breach either of those companies have had as a trusted vendor in the consumer space. So tell me, why would they fail to extend the same security policies to enterprise data if you entrusted it to them? Would that be good business for them?
If the economy weren't tanking, I'd say this rhetorical notion that cloud computing is somehow vastly less safe than traditional on-premise environment would continue to hold, encouraged by consultants and vendors who have a stake in making sure you overpay for applications and maintenance on utilitarian systems (such as e-mail) and call it "strategic investment with a trusted partner."
But as IDC (a sister company to CIO's publisher) points out, the huge cost savings that can be realized from moving to the cloud will be more than IT pros can ignore, or (I'd add) their increasingly more tech savvy CFOs and CEOs will let them ignore.
The reality is, worrying that Amazon or Google "isn't secure" doesn't mean they're not secure: It either means you don't want them to be secure because you're used to doing things a certain way, where you have a certain level of control, or you've just been heavily swayed by vendors that don't want to take the next step in computing. Worse, perhaps you're just worried what a shift to cloud computing might do for your job security.
Of course, IT vets (especially those on a high level) still have a bright future in a cloud computing world, so you shouldn't worry in that regard. But it will be a very different role, centering around managing vendor relationships or working on integration efforts (the latter, by the way, I think should have scored much higher in the "concerns about cloud computing" than security).
Some people might have found it surprisingly high that 58 percent of survey respondents said "cloud computing will cause a radical shift in information technology driving the next wave of innovation." I found the number surprisingly low -- an answer of "yes" to that question should have been near unanimous.
The Web has profoundly changed the way we consume information and now, with Software as a Service, the way we contribute and update information as well. As such, I have to believe the days are numbered for the alarming 42 percent who checked off "no." It was even more alarming that 30 percent said cloud computing wasn't on their technology road map at all.
There are legitimate worries about cloud computing. How will you get disparate applications run by vendors in different parts of the world to play nicely with one another? When will the functionalities of certain cloud-based applications catch up with the functions of on-premise apps (think: the difference between an Excel and a Google Apps Spreadsheet)?
Uptime is a concern. Google (as an example) has shown that outages can be a tremendous problem for customers, recently watching its Gmail go down for 30 hours, leaving workers and even CEOs without their email and documents.
But the ultimate question will be when are CIOs and IT
Previous Post: Unlike Earlier Bubble Burst, This Recession Not Likely to Spur Tech...Next Post: Why Layoffs at Consumer Tech Start-Ups Matter to Enterprise IT
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
