Recently I've attended a few cloud forums and have listened to some very interesting discussions. Why interesting? Well, discussions seem to have moved on from the cloud computing technology to how it affects the consumer. However, as similar questions are popping up again and again, I thought I would provide some insight to some of the most common consumer questions from these forums.
Security
The question about security never seems to go away. The feeling I get, as ever, is that common sense prevails. It’s not really the responsibility of any one particular person to cover the security aspect of cloud computing, but it is down to both the consumer and the provider to adhere to best practice. It should also be ongoing. I work for a cloud provider and we do have in-house skills to keep our cloud secure. We also have external third party professionals testing our security on a regular basis to see if we are as good as we think we are! However, the consumer should still take some responsibility to implement security best practice; including good firewall config, good anti-virus tools, regular OS patching, and - importantly - hardening the security of the OS and the applications you run in the cloud. Also, it's advisable for the consumer to monitor their systems.The IT Department
The IT department obviously takes ownership of infrastructure issues. But when access to the cloud becomes so simple, why bother asking the IT department for a server when you can get your own computer resource from the cloud within minutes? Assuming a certain skill level, it is often quicker and less hassle to go to the cloud than to wait for the IT department to configure a server on your behalf. However it is still important to recognise that your IT department has a vast amount of experience which should not be bypassed – especially where security is concerned. Spinning up your own server will most likely need to comply with your internal IT policies so as to avoid conflicts or bugs. Also, ongoing management of cloud compute resources can be dealt with by your IT provider and often falls in line with their processes they have in place. Therefore, the feedback I keep hearing is that IT departments need to change the way they operate to deal with what cloud computing offers - adapting their processes to allow the speed and flexibility other departments require.
How and Why?
The other interesting question that still crops up is how and why do you move to the cloud? 'Why' is really down to your specific use case. One of the big wins is the fact that you can manage your cost. OPEX compared to CAPEX is a great win for finance people. Instead of the cost of a new server and the associated resources, you can have the cost split up across the relevant months, which you can easily forecast. Questions will keep coming, I'm sure. And this is just a very high-level view of just three key topics. If you still have more questions or need more detail about whether the cloud is right for your business, drop me a line - @oliverleach
