What is Cloud Computing?
You can’t look anywhere these days without reading about “cloud computing.” The term seems to be popping up everywhere. So, what exactly is cloud computing? A simplistic definition is computing on the Internet. It allows users the ability to access everything on the Internet, from software to their stored data, without having to store anything on their actual computer. The user only needs a computer with a web browser in order to access the cloud.
What is So Great About Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing has the potential to allow small businesses or businesses on a budget the ability to have high quality computing at a lower cost. Business owners no longer need to invest in expensive IT equipment or pay an entire IT staff that would normally be required in order to keep a computer system running. Storing data in the cloud would help reduce IT costs while still allowing businesses to grow.
What Cloud Computing Concerns Does Your IT Service Provider Need to Address?
Cloud computing is such a new technology that your IT Service Provider will need to complete a thorough assessment of your business needs and identify all cloud-related security issues. Some of these concerns are:
- If you store your valuable business documents in the cloud and your Internet connection goes down, how do you continue business activity?
- The stability of the Cloud vendors you engage with.
- Where your company located and where your data physically be stored. If your data is stored in another country, is that country required to comply with the same security standards that you would expect from your home country?
- Who is in charge of storing and managing your data?
- How secure is the login? Would hackers be able to easily gain access to your data?
- Is your data encrypted so that others cannot easily view it?
- Is the cloud storage company willing to undergo a certification process and willing to comply with certain security standards?
At this point, working with your IT Service Provider to develop a plan to resolve these issues is required, as cloud computing has so much to offer businesses from flexibility to growth potential to tremendous cost savings.
