This multi-billion dollar industry of Cloud Computing will be on trend for years to come, but there are a few risky items to consider before switching over valuable data to the cloud.
Business owners are benefiting with Cloud Computing, but each business may want to take into consideration the fact that there have been security issues with encryption and data retrieval.
Cloud Computing Throughout the Years
The idea of Cloud Computing has continued to be a hot topic recently, but has been relevant for over fifty years. Businesses would purchase only a couple mainframe computers and create schedule sharing protocols for employees to access files on the central mainframe for a certain period of time per day. It was too expensive for businesses to purchase and continue to maintain individual machines for every employee, which led to the idea of cloud computing and sharing accessibility of software and information.
Before cloud computing technology became available, businesses had to manage their IT resources on-site, with local servers, networking equipment, software and people, in a manner that was very capital and time intensive without a high degree of scalability.
Today, businesses can use public clouds, which are managed off-premises and available to multiple organizations; private clouds, which are created independently and used by a single organization; or a hybrid approach employing both these models. The continued decline of computing costs and improvements in network infrastructure have also given rise to edge computing, which still distributes IT services, but pushes them closer to the end-user, on an edge-device, to minimize latency and reduce costs.
Cloud companies, especially first movers, have and are expected to continue to benefit from economies of scale and network effects, but businesses should be cautious on what platforms they want to transfer over to the cloud of their choice.
Business Optimization by Integration of a Hybrid Cloud
Wayfair Chooses Google Cloud, to Help Scale Its Growing Business, While Creating Engaging Consumer (and Seller) Experiences, Jan. 10, 2020 – Sunnyvale, CA
Optimization of performance and resiliency (SRE) site reliability ensures that Wayfair employers and employees can connect through G Suite email and create sustainable connectivity that allows for the distribution of ideas and improvements to their company.
Customers are a driving force that create qualitative data to businesses with grouping items of interest with the option of scaling data. With scaling data that is collected from identifying trends, analysts can create a more personalized customer experience and potentially sell more products specifically featured, with consumer preferences in mind.
Wayfair choose Google Cloud to scale their operations and has protected critical information by utilizing a hybrid cloud option.
Making the Switch Safely While Transforming Technology
McAfee and Google Cloud Announce Partnership to Integrate McAfee Security Solutions with Google Cloud Platform, December 16, 2019 – Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, CA
McAfee MVISION Cloud for Containers service extends data security, threat prevention, governance, and compliance capabilities of the MVISION Cloud platform to provide additional security for container-based workloads on Google Cloud. Organizations can also leverage MVISION to integrate security into DevOps processes and toolsets to discover and address security issues before applications are deployed.
This partnership shows that there are ongoing security threats while using cloud computing and that businesses need to be aware of what security platforms they are going to deploy to protect their workload and private information.
Risks That Should Not Be Ignored
Cloud Computing has many advantages for global industries, but businesses need to be aware of the possible chance of encryption, internal bugs, data retrieval and natural disasters. If a business decides to engage in cloud computing they should understand the risks of data losses and possible server attacks. Full list provided here.
Insights Before for Updating Company Systems
- Stored Data can be Lost – there are multiple ways data can be lost including deletion by cloud service provider or physical catastrophes. The customer is also responsible for keeping track of the encryption key.
- Data Deletion is Incomplete – consumers have reduced visibility of their data when stored in the cloud making deletion hard to track and can actually spread information without knowledge
- Software Vulnerabilities – Software require updates and security, know who is monitoring your software and data to minimize threats
Moving to the cloud is a major step for any business or individual, there are increased benefits for accessibility, but on the other hand, privacy can be over looked and manipulated. Fully understanding Cloud Computing can help business owners understand the benefits and risks.
