Cloud computing and the dangers of shadow IT

Grazed from TechRepublic.  Author: Thoran Rodrigues.

Of the many well-known promises of cloud computing, such as lower costs, faster time-to-delivery, and improved reliability, perhaps one of the most dangerous promises that cloud providers on all parts of the stack (infrastructure, platform and software) are making, is to make business users effectively independent from the IT department. This promise, while a key selling point for some, is in fact a huge threat not only to companies, but to cloud computing as a whole.

In trying to make business users more independent from the IT department, cloud providers have been slowly creating a shadow IT ecosystem that, instead of having its own processes, many times has no process at all, consisting of haphazardly put together sets of solutions that create significant risks for companies, many times without them actually knowing about them…

Shadow IT rises from two main features of cloud solutions, especially cloud- or cloud-based software: the external hosting of solutions and the pay-as-you-go business model. These, in turn, create two separate sets of risks for corporations. The former creates risks associated with IT (data security and privacy, systems reliability, disaster recovery), while the latter creates risks on the financial side of things. Over the next couple of posts, we will explore in more detail these two sides of shadow IT, and how companies can deal with them effectively…

Read more from the source @ http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/the-enterprise-cloud/cloud-computing-and-the-dangers-of-shadow-it/