The recent rise of Cloud computing has freed us from the slavery of excessive bureaucracy and power/energy costs, eliminating the danger of power failures and unwanted crashes, and giving a jump-start for small businesses in a crowded competitive marketplace to raise market visibility, productivity, growth and customer satisfaction/loyalty within a short span of time. It has reorganized the business and IT infrastructures of companies and organizations to simultaneously allow for all employees, managers, and CEOs the shared access and exchange of valuable data, which is processed with the aid of AI applications with high processing speed and power capacity that can recognize human behavior through machine learning, cognitive intelligence and semantics technology processes. Therefore, it can predict fluctuations in customer demand and mass consumer trends, and deliver personalized solutions for undiscovered business strategies and future crises.
Cloud Risks
The data is stored on online servers managed by service providers—or installed on-site thanks to Private and/or Public Cloud services such as Microsoft’s Azure Hybrid platform that can also carry out tasks on both the Cloud server and the data center of the client. It has eliminated the need for excessive hardware such as hard drives and cables and made it possible to work remotely from anywhere in the world or from the comfort of your couch; transforming the work environment into a real ‘mobile office’ where CEOs, managers and employees can all share data online and contribute collectively to the growth of the company by exchanging innovative ideas gathered from all possible sources on the internet, including social media, news outlets, virtual libraries and consumer reports. However, some concerns still exist for companies who want to migrate their data to the Cloud but are still undecided.
Shared Access of Data
The first risk naturally concerns the shared access- or multitenancy-of the data, as it may fall into the wrongs hands unless the appropriate security measures are taken with the aid of Cloud computing experts and also cyber security professionals. Industrial espionage is still an issue and so is cyber hacking through which third parties could gain complete control of the computing resources including the CPU, memory, storage, namespace, IP address, and could also assume the identity of a client or employee.
Access Controls
Authentication, authorization and access control are usually left in the hands of Public Cloud vendors. How reliable are they for a client? How can you be assured that they will not be misused or mishandled perhaps even involuntarily? The best way to resolve this conundrum is to inform yourself first on the various Cloud services available, what specific Cloud apps and services they offer for your specified needs, and also consult directly with the vendor regarding the sharing of namespaces and authentication which, while they speed up productivity, can significantly increase the risks of infiltration. Do not be afraid to ask important questions before choosing a vendor!
Valuable Data
If you are afraid of migrating all your most valuable data from the data center to the Cloud, you can still keep your data center and only move the bulk of other business data that is old or less relevant. Or you can choose a vendor that can operate tasks on both the client’s data center and the vendor’s server. You can also decide to back up your data just in case and only migrate business information to the cloud by increments as your business grows and the need for more storage and memory increases over time; so it is especially a useful strategy for small businesses or start-ups.
Finally, the best way for companies to mitigate these potential risks is to inform themselves directly (CEOs, managers, and employees) on Cloud computing technology. Online there are many tutorials and Cloud training courses available such as those offered by academic institutions like Cloud Academy, that cover everything from the basics to knowing how to work with Amazon’s AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Devops and also offers continuous training to keep up to date with the latest technologies and upgrades.
