Shadow Cloud Services: Seeing the Light with Cloud Computing

Grazed from MSPHub.  Author: Editorial Staff.

According to a recent article from CIO, “many companies contain workstations with software that is not approved by the Information Technology (IT) department; instead, it has been adopted and installed by individuals or even, in some cases, entire departments.” Simply put, not just employees but entire business units are now willing to circumvent IT policies they find too restrictive, and the open nature of public cloud services makes this a simple task.

Of course, such unsanctioned use comes with real risk. For example, DevOps work done with unapproved services puts sensitive data beyond the reach of corporate firewalls and other securitymeasures. E-discovery requests also become problematic, since IT professionals do not have knowledge of data use from start to finish. In addition, asset management is an issue, since productivity may spike without a definitive cause, making budgetary discussions more complicated. Ultimately, ignoring shadow cloud services is not an option, but controlling them can prove difficult…

Shining Light on the Situation

MSPMentor, meanwhile, notes that the rise of shadow IT requires companies to “carefully monitor its effects on security and cloud-based file sharing.” Jim Reavis, co-founder and CEO of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), says that “companies are going to try to get control of shadow cloud this year. It’s a problem they can’t ignore.” The question stands: How do midsize businesses effectively make the transition from being kept in the dark to shining light on unsanctioned usage?…

Read more from the source @ http://themsphub.com/shadow-cloud-services-seeing-the-light-cloud-computing/