No cloud for the needs of the cloud

The growing demand for cloud computing is caused by the pressures of business development and the maintenance of market dominance. However, as with any it important decision, foresight and overall vision are essential in the face of cloud computing solutions-as the saying goes: "Only Fools are reckless." ”

So how do you make the right decisions for your IT team and business and make the top level happy? It's not easy to do this. Abdullah Haydar, the chief technical officer of the Open Dealer Exchange LLC (located in Michigan Troy), thinks he's lucky. With good relationship with CEO and CFO, Haydar has gained full trust in cloud computing. Therefore, Haydar can decide not to adopt cloud computing in some aspects. However, he can still clearly feel the pressure from other areas.

"I can tell you clearly that this kind of pressure can be felt in conversations with colleagues and friends in other industries – ' Hey, your data center is so big, so many servers and other devices, you should start thinking about cloud computing. ' Haydar said: "Those who say these words may be CEOs or CFO of the high-level, they do not know much about cloud computing-so we face considerable challenges." ”

Lauren Nelson is an analyst with Forrester, Inc., who is familiar with the situation. "Many IT managers are under pressure to adopt cloud computing. "Business units have a strong desire to adopt cloud computing, but managers are concerned that there is no protection from the company's security system," she says. So they want the IT department to act first. In addition, for business development, business managers want to improve their productivity through the new technology of cloud computing. ”

Does cloud computing solve or cause problems?

Although it is a well known truth, Haydar and Nelson have emphasized the need to determine the scenario of cloud scenarios – most of the scenarios that can bring economic benefits. Nelson's view is that, in many cases, CIOs and it executives simply want to outsource their troubles, such as the ERP system, with the help of cloud computing. This piecemeal approach is very short-sighted.

"We find that a lot of people don't really understand what cloud computing is, and they don't understand the economic implications behind the application selection." "said Nelson. She thinks people should think about things from an economic point of view, such as whether they can bring long-term cost cuts, or whether the changes in workloads can make the scalability of cloud computing work.

A retail company's website is a stark example. Daily traffic is basically stable, but the peak of the holiday is unpredictable. In this case, the scalability of the cloud solution ensures that the site is properly serviced during the peak visit. In this case, the economic benefits of cloud computing are obvious.

"Cloud computing is very useful if you face similar variables and unknown requirements." "A lot of CIOs haven't thought about it that much, they usually look at what other people are doing, and how successful others are at cloud computing," says Nelson. ”

Implementation basics of Cloud computing

Haydar stressed that any cloud computing decision must have a solid practical significance. Whenever a impatient peer asks for advice, he advises them to look at their systems and infrastructure first, and then find out where they can benefit from cloud computing. The specific return on investment and total cost of ownership are essential to demonstrate that the cloud solution conforms to industry regulatory norms. It's best to sit tight until these things are clear.

"If you feel that it is inappropriate, should be obliged to stand up and say ' this is not suitable for the use of cloud computing." I know that you have the will to adopt cloud computing, but not all systems have the corresponding conditions and potential benefits. "Haydar said:" You should have a dialectical attitude, can not be all kinds of propaganda under the hasty action-any project built on the wrong basis is doomed to be unable to succeed. ”

Instead of using a public cloud, many businesses use virtual machines to create private clouds within their data centers. Wisniewski says this approach is considered a good way to reduce costs and improve efficiency, but it also raises data security issues.

Experts say that while security researchers have confirmed that a highly technical management program attack is feasible, cyber criminals are less likely to use this complex attack. The problem facing the enterprise is the potential flaw within the virtual server. Configuration errors and bad policies can be exploited by attackers to gain access to sensitive data. For example, when a virtual snapshot captures the system state (a common method of backing up a system), the usual password and encryption keys are in memory because they need to be used to decrypt the file. Snapshots are time-saving and a good backup mechanism, but businesses need to securely store snapshots. "You need to keep the encryption key in memory, but you should blur the encryption key in memory," he says. ”

(Responsible editor: Schpeppen)