Federal Cloud Computing Broker Offers Business Advice: Don’t Move Everything

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

While the cloud is a "very viable scenario," there are some things that do not belong in the cloud, such as nuclear command and control, says David Bennett, CIO of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), a Department of Defense cloud computing broker. Sure, midsize companies may not have the power to level nations and scorch the earth, but there is solid advice here — the cloud is ideal for many things, but not for everything.

Shields Up

According to a recent CIO article, Bennett has a message for the leaders of other agencies: "carefully consider which data sources and applications are suitable for a remotely hosted and managed environment." His feeling is that certain assets must stay behind local perimeters. Determining what is suitable for the cloud means taking a hard look at existing data sources and applications to identify "crown jewels" that are better safe than as-a-service. He also calls out the need for continuous monitoring that goes beyond watching data to cover an entire business network, everything from application behavior to bandwidth use to employee activity. And of course, it is critical to have access to this monitoring data in real-time…

As noted by CRN, a recent survey found that 88 percent of IT professionals believe cloud computing is the "future of IT." But 53 percent said they still felt some apprehension about moving to the cloud, especially regarding security. This is a familiar debate for midsize IT professionals — cloud benefits are numerous, but it only takes a single failure to put companies at massive risk. So what is the ideal cloud strategy?…

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