For many, the cloud is this mystical place that magically stores information. Once your information is in the cloud you don’t have to manage or think about it, but have the benefit of accessing it at anytime from anywhere. That sounds pretty magical. Chances are, you utilize the cloud already and may not even know it. If you use social media, order from Amazon, or watch a show on Netflix—your cute cat photos and favorite shows are hanging in the cloud.
But the reality is, the cloud is not metaphysical; it is very real. In fact, it is so real that there are entire buildings, campuses if you will, in far-away places housing servers that store massive amounts of data from various sources. Big tech companies invest unimaginable amounts of money on such facilities and technology to sell cloud services, and small cloud companies jump in and out of the cloud computing scene daily. Cloud technology is not going away (nor should it), but some caution needs to be taken when making the decision to dump critical data into the cloud.
Here is the thing with cloud computing—depending on the terms the company has put forth—you may not own that information stored away on the cloud. Information security and ownership is incredibly tricky. Even files that are said to be handled or deleted by cloud companies somehow find their way back to the surface. Here are a few cloud computing areas of concern:
- Security
- Validating cloud providers
- Who is to blame when the servers go down
- Integration with current systems
- Bandwidth of data transfer
Cloud computing is not a new concept, but the laws and regulations surrounding cloud computing are continuously changing and attempting to evolve with technology. Think about this for a moment: if you provide cloud storage, how would you reduce the cost of services? What do many manufacturers do in the U.S. to reduce costs? That’s right, they send business overseas to a far-off destinations where real estate and labor is less expensive. For some companies this may not be a big deal, but most organizations collect and store sensitive data that would ruin a company if it fell into the wrong hands.
Cloud computing is really amazing. The ability to be connected and communicate from anywhere around the world—incredible. There is no question that cloud computing is a must to function in 2016. But companies need to factor in the risk of sending all their information to a cloud storage provider, and explore what could go wrong and what affects it would have over your business. The cost of losing information or having data compromised could cost more than investing time in researching other storage solutions.