Silver lining in the cloud but challenges remain for IT cos

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Bangalore: greatly expanded and cyber criminals have many more loopholes in the network armour to target as employees traverse in and out of the network proper, according to Derek Manky, Project manager, cyber security and threat research, Fortinet. “With cloud computing, we are shifting towards a thin-client world which implies more responsibility and capability on the server side. In terms of capabilities, these servers must support and monitor much more traffic flow, increase their power and capacity, and host complex software to support their function,” he explained.

Data security is most crucial to any organisation. While prevention is of utmost importance, cloud service providers also need to have a focussed recovery plan in the event of data loss. Continuous monitoring is required to investigate and analyse the cause of security breaches and prevent their recurrence, said Sarathy of Juniper Networks.

Another issue associated with cloud computing is the lack of clarity on what happens to data during acquisitions. “Company data traditionally resides in the LAN; in case this is moved to the cloud, what happens to the information when the company is acquired?” Sarathy questioned.

Also, with so many companies jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon, how is a potential buyer supposed to sort through the noise? “Vendor selection being really important, one needs to check vendor-provided development tools, hosting infrastructure, storage and data center capacity etc, to make a decision. A one-size-fits-all approach would never work. Strategic partnerships with service-provider firms / SIs usually enable the cloud vendors to scale and offer better service levels,” said Ashwin Krishna, chief operating officer, Torry Harris Business Solutions. “An example would be a partnership between SalesForce (cloud provider) and Torry Harris (SI partner).”