Cloud security remains the biggest worry for corporate policymakers

Google Application Security Manager Eran Feigenbaum inkling about the risks. As you may not know, Eran Feigenbaum has another identity--a part-time TV and a stage magician, "Eran Raven." In the Magic World, Eran Raven is known for its snakes, scorpions, and blade stunts. He used to perform Russian roulette with a nail gun in the NBC magician's Talent show "Fantasy Master," and went on a 5-day tour of the Las Vegas Hollywood Planet Hotel (Planet Yap) in August. As the head of Google's business security, Eran Feigenbaum is responsible for raising the trust of security managers in the cloud, and the magician's experience has helped Eran's day-to-day work. Working in the area of computer security requires a strong sense of risk, Eran says, "It's the same as shooting a nail gun on stage." ”

Today, cloud computing is one of the hottest topics in the IT world. As companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon have launched online cloud services, businesses no longer need to build giant server fleets like they used to. Cloud computing is a huge response to corporate software developers and ordinary employees. With cloud computing, they can instantly get file information without being constrained by time and equipment.

However, corporate policymakers are not fully prepared to embrace the cloud, fearing that cloud services could compromise data security. A market research firm IDC study found that less than one-third of IT decision makers think cloud computing benefits outweigh the risks, and nearly one-fourth of respondents say they can't understand the regulatory and compliance issues of cloud computing, and another 47% think cloud services are a security risk.

Webintensive software company's president David Bodnick the first time to see the security implications of cloud computing. "Some of our customers are already aware of the risks of cloud computing," Bodnick said. "Webintensive is a New York company that develops online applications for its clients, including a database LexisNexis, the United Nations, Columbia University, etc. Search Engine StartPage is one of Webintensive's clients. StartPage refused to use the cloud service because it feared that the data might be stored on a remote server and that StartPage had assured the user that its web search record would not be stored. A healthcare information company wants to incorporate cloud storage into its applications through webintensive, but it must ensure that patient information is not leaked, raising the cost of 15%. "The problem now is that we have not considered the security issues of hosting applications in the cloud," Bodnick said. ”

IT managers say cloud computing has propped up a "umbrella" for customers. This means that cloud computing keeps corporate systems away from viruses and hackers, and ensures compliance with the legal policies of e-mail communications. In San Francisco and California State Inns's Paediatric hospital SF Bay Pediatrics, doctors use Google Apps (Google Apps) and online file storage services Dropbox to share patient information. In addition, they can send emails through the iphone to transmit patient images. Hospital chief information officer Andrew Johnson stressed that doctors cannot store diagnostic or other information in the cloud because online services are not guaranteed to comply with federal privacy rules. "We don't store any information in the cloud," Johnson said. ”

Some IT managers who have tried cloud computing worry that cloud computing is not as reliable as the system itself. Amazon's network services crashed two times in April and August this year, causing some sites to shut down for extended periods, such as Netflix, the world's largest streaming media player, and Foursquare, a smartphone app developer. Microsoft and Google's online services have also experienced similar downtime, making web-based e-mail, file sharing and other applications unusable, affecting a large number of users. Sanjay Poonen, President of SAP Global Solutions for business software manufacturers, said the series of outages triggered a cloud-computing trust crisis, and we dared not even buy the so-called necessary programs from the cloud providers. Although SAP has signed a partnership agreement with Amazon in May-using Amazon cloud services to run some enterprise-class applications, Poonen revealed that SAP is not ready to migrate the entire business process to the cloud.

Cloud companies understand the concerns of their customers. Adam Selipsky, vice president of Amazon Network Services, said: "The way companies move into the cloud means they will process the data in a completely different manner." "Amazon, Microsoft and Google have said they have tightened security in many ways, such as data center access, personal information protection in credit card transactions, and firewalls against hackers to reduce risk." In addition, cloud services have a higher safety factor than many enterprise-built systems. According to Google, its Gmail email service was running at close to 99.984% in 2010, and up to 99.99% this year. Feigenbaum says this means that Gmail has less than 5 minutes of downtime per month, and few companies can do that with their own systems.