Balance Risks and Rewards When Making the Cloud Decision
Deciding to invest in cloud technology, like making any IT investment, requires balancing the risks against the rewards. This scale will tilt differently for every business depending on its internal priorities and the challenges of its internal IT. How do these numbers stack up for you?
Assessing the Cloud Risk Balance
There are a number of cloud risks you should consider, along with ways they can potentially be mitigated.
Risk: Security
For many businesses, the security of cloud remains a major concern. With data in a shared environment that isn’t completely under your control, there are new threats to data security.
Balance:
There are threats to data security within your own data center. Many businesses lack security expertise on staff, and they are behind on basic security measures such as patch installation. In the cloud, you have the benefit of the cloud provider’s security team, and they handle much routine support and maintenance.
Mitigate:
You can mitigate data security risks in the cloud by taking advantage of tools that help ensure a secure environment and authorized access to data. Many cloud providers have documented best practices and can analyze where your configurations don’t follow those suggestions. You can often implement your own security measures with firewalls, cloud access security brokers, and encryption. Learn more in 6 Ways to Keep Your Cloud Secure.
Risk: Over-spending
Although cloud can be lower-cost than on premises infrastructure, it’s easy to spend more than expected. These unexpected expenses can come from higher demand than anticipated or through self-service, on-demand instantiation of new, unapproved services.
Balance:
Although cloud spending figures can be substantial, they are generally nowhere near the scale of the capital expenditures associated with on premises infrastructure. In addition, on-demand cloud access gives you greater flexibility and agility than if you have to provision needed resources in your own data center.
Mitigate:
Use tools to help you track changes in your cloud configuration so you can identify new instances and new services. Track utilization numbers and look for opportunities to consolidate. Automate money-saving policies such as shutting servers down at end of day. Learn more in 9 Ways to Get Cloud Costs Under Control.
Risk: Lack of control
Managing cloud resources is complex because there’s a loss of visibility, especially if you use multiple clouds. Until your team develops expertise in the cloud systems, you’ll also find management challenging simply due to lack of experience.
Balance:
Controlling systems in your own data center is challenging, as well. And because the cloud provider handles many of the routine maintenance functions, you’ll have more time to devote to analyzing the data you access.
Mitigate:
Use managed cloud services from CCS Technology Group to add expertise to your team. Our experts can help you select the right cloud, migrate your infrastructure, and provide the support needed to make sure your cloud continues to meet your business needs.
Those are just a few of the risk tradeoffs you’ll want to consider when you’re deciding whether to switch to cloud. Contact CCS Technology Group to learn about other risks and rewards to evaluate and to get help successfully switching to cloud.
