Switching to cloud computing
A company owner wrote to me: “Cloud computing is the best solution to my company since I can move everything to a cloud provider and get rid of our 60 people information technology department. However before making the decision, I want to know is there any negative thing about moving to cloud computing?
Answer: There are good reasons for a company to move things to the clouds. There are also bad reasons too, as cloud computing may not be the right choice for every company because of security reason.
Security is always an issue because not every company can store specific data outside of their own controlled systems. For example government agencies may have rules on where certain types of data are stored. Data stored in the cloud could be anywhere that may or may not be secured enough. Although security issues in the cloud are being addressed by most cloud providers but the question remain whether you trust them enough with your sensitive data. Some cloud providers tend to relocate their servers in several locations or even countries to take advantage of costs so you may never know where your data is stored.
Not all cloud computing are cost effective solution as you may think. If companies have a large amounts of data and intensive data processing requirements such as Banking or Investment companies than cost savings on storage could be upset by the cost of high bandwidth to process that data.
Another negative issue is the loss of control when you move to the cloud. If you do not have an IT staff in house, you are solely depending on the cloud provider and follow whatever they dictate regardless of your specific business needs. At this time, standards have not been established for cloud computing so the software interface is written mostly by each cloud provider. If they go out of business, or if you are not happy with their service you cannot switch to other provider easily.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
