The Risks Of Moving To The Cloud

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Carlene Masker.

In the current global economic climate, companies and enterprises are required to migrate to cloud-based deployment models in order reduce costs and become self-sustainable. Post the dot-com bubble, the development of advanced web and storage technologies has been on the ascension. One such revolutionary technology developed post the dot-com era is cloud Computing, which focuses on the deliverance of computing services over the Internet. The highlight characteristic of cloud computing technologies is that they bring about system independence, multi-tenancy, scalability, virtualization, and more. Due to these benefits, companies and organizations are keen on migrating to cloud computing platforms.

Security is a prime area of concern for businesses when planning to migrate to cloud based services, along with other concerns such as reliability and integrating capability with existing IT infrastructure. There are already numerous assertions made by major technology companies regarding the rise of cloud-based deployments. In a recent conference, Cisco stated that it will be a tedious task to monitor data transferred to and from the cloud. On the flip side, renowned cloud service providers like Salesforce.com and Amazon Web Services state that the fears regarding security risks in cloud-based models are sort of overblown…

Based on the requirement and business niche, businesses can choose from four types of cloud deployment models: Public cloud, Community cloud, Hybrid cloud, and Private cloud. A recent study disclosed that in the next four years about 50% of existing small and medium-sized businesses will shift to cloud-based deployment models. Though the security risks pertaining to cloud-based services are yet to be documented, it is wise for businesses to be aware of the impending security breaches that the cloud-based models are prone to. Some of the well-known security risks that cloud-based models bring about are long-term viability, data segregation & location, data recovery, regulatory compliance, and privileged user access…

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