Personal cloud: New challenges to the IT department

As personal cloud and professional cloud merge, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the IT department, which is responsible for increasing productivity while protecting enterprise applications and data.

Bringing your own equipment to the workplace (BYOD) is 2012, and the next trend in the IT consumer world is to carry your own cloud. As with the huge influx of consumer devices into the corporate environment, many IT companies have listed what to do and what not to do about this new trend.

The usual approach for businesses is to "use this, don't use that" approach, that is, to prohibit the use of personal cloud applications for commercial purposes, but rather to use alternative applications provided by the enterprise. At the same time, the enterprise separates the Izumo storage workspaces for the enterprise files to preserve, manage, and audit the files independently. But it is hard for businesses to control personal cloud services, and if the productivity tools in the personal cloud can help them get their work done easier, faster, and better, users will find ways to bypass it. On the one hand, the IT department wants to adopt two management approaches to consumer and professional cloud applications and storage, on the other hand, users will not succumb to this.

Bypassing enterprise IT departments using personal cloud applications

After the enterprise failed to provide a viable solution to meet its needs, VMware End-User Computing chief technology officer Scott Davis began using personal cloud applications. Davis's job involves communicating with people around the world and sharing large multimedia presentations, and when he applies a special case to his company for email attachment size, it first advises him to shrink the shared file and then recommends that he buy a "big bag of USB drives" to mail the files. "This time I started using Dropbox," he says. "It faces a lot of competition." People know that if it doesn't help them, there are a lot of tools outside to help them do their job well. "Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg agrees," he says, "It's not just about bringing your own equipment to the workplace, but about bringing your own services to the workplace." "If companies offer professional cloud products that do not provide better service, or they prefer their personal cloud applications, they will bypass viable alternatives." "If it's a digital application and it's a consumer app, there's always a way for users to get it into the office," he says. People always find a reason to use it. ”

In Skanska, an American construction company, employees use a variety of personal cloud services (such as Dropbox and Evernote) to handle both business and personal matters. "We have no control now," said Jeff Roman, senior corporate engineer at the company. "But it is evaluating this practice." "What should we limit, what do they have in the workplace and at home?" he asked. Now, companies are restricting employees by using policies for which types of files cannot be placed in the cloud and which are allowed in the cloud. For example, according to policy, financial data can never be placed in cloud services, as are documents related to government projects.

But at the same time, Skanska is looking for an alternative cloud storage option. The company is considering using Microsoft's SkyDrive Pro, or Citrix's Zenmobile, to provide virtual access to files stored on back-end servers, or to use niche services, such as Autodesk buzzsaw-, which puts construction-drawing design tools and documents in the cloud. "We don't force people to use these alternatives, but we need to make sure these solutions are as simple as personal cloud tools," he says. Otherwise, users may bypass the alternatives offered by the enterprise. "It's hard for us to find a perfect solution," he says, "but we're working on it and I hope that in the next year we'll be able to find an alternative, whether it's in the interior or in the cloud, or the mix of both." ”

Blurring of personal cloud and professional domain

Jim Guinn, managing director of professional services, says companies need to develop a three-pronged strategy for internal deployments, external deployments, and cloud computing. "You really need to be aware of how you should protect the security of files that reside in other people's cloud services," he says. ”

Roman that some files should not be in the mainstream cloud storage services, "I've seen the white papers on Dropbox and box, and I think they're safe, but we don't want to risk sensitive documents." ”

The question of who owns business applications and how these applications are licensed is becoming increasingly blurred. For example, the business Evernote adds a business service layer that includes a policy-based business notebook and increases the business document library to the user's personal Evernote account. Personal and professional files are located in different repositories, but can be viewed through a unified view.

Andrew Sinkov, vice president of marketing at Evernote, said: "We are seeing a transition from two disparate worlds to a world of blurred personal and business boundaries." "If the user leaves the enterprise, the account (without enterprise documentation) will be accompanied by the user." "Companies know very little about this model, but I think this model will have a far-reaching impact," said Frank Gillett, analyst at Forrester Research. ”

With Office 2013 and SkyDrive, Microsoft has taken a small step towards building a unified view of the personal and professional world. Microsoft has created a synchronized local version of the SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro (SharePoint document library) repository as a separate folder on the user's local desktop. In this way, Office 365 can create and modify documents in the cloud, Office 2013 can read and write to the same files in the local folder, and all changes are synchronized. Microsoft spokesman Steve Clayton said: "From a user's point of view, there is convergence." ”

This strategy incorporates an integrated approach to personal and professional workflows, a dual-car garage model in which users must exit an account and enter another to view and edit documents. Office applications can save files to two folders. If a user copies a file from his personal SkyDrive folder to the SkyDrive Pro folder, the file will be copied into the cloud, and the policy for that document library will apply.

But this is only in the cloud. Although it can control which files users sync with SkyDrive Pro, cloud services cannot control how users operate on locally stored files. Users either dispose of sensitive files in the cloud or use the Information Rights management features of Office 2013 to control the forwarding, copying, or printing of specific files.

"Obviously there will be a lot of changes and it needs to consolidate these personal cloud services to the current stack and figure out how they will work together," said Amit Singh, president of Google's corporate sector. "Google has added corporate functionality to consumer-facing cloud applications in recent years, such as Google Docs, where personal documents can be shared between controlled auditable professional accounts and user's personal accounts." However, Docs does not provide a consolidated document view. On the other hand, Google Plus is used as a half-through layer, and we can add control from the bottom to the enterprise.

It's top priority: Focus on protecting the file itself

But not all consumer cloud applications will necessarily expand to support enterprise security and compliance requirements.

As the personal and professional world becomes increasingly blurred, it must adapt to this situation. Users will want to use some of their own personal cloud productivity tools, so whether it's good or bad, it will need to support these mainstream personal cloud applications, including Dropbox. Looking ahead, you will need to integrate your employees ' personal cloud applications as well as your data, just as you now connect with your business partners.

In the end, it will not have to worry about how to control where the application or document is stored, but rather focus on protecting the file itself, said Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. "Companies will need to allow these things to happen and take different security perspectives," he says. It will eventually embrace digital rights management programs, such as Microsoft's Information Rights Management services. ”

"We are working with Microsoft to support this privilege management in a mobile environment," said Nicko van Someren, chief technology officer of Enterprise mobile management supplier Marvell. "But the market that currently uses Rights Management servers to track and control content is still in the bud."

Although DRM (digital content Rights Management) has a bad reputation in the consumer world, the system can be used in an enterprise environment. For example, Dulaney refers to the WatchDox, which encrypts files outside of the corporate space and requires the user to view the files using the Validator Reader program.

If the concept of DRM is unacceptable and too expensive, the combination of personal and professional cloud will leave the IT department with little choice to protect really sensitive files. It will also face the challenge of maximizing convenience while protecting the security of assets at many different terminal terminals and in a world that needs to move quickly between devices.

"These trends in consumer technology are menacing and supported by a lot of users, and it is now the era of user-driven it, not business-driven, and we need to listen to the voice of the user," says Dulaney. ”

Skanska's Roman says he has no longer fancied he can control all the applications and data that are created and shared in the cloud, even though the company plans to provide cloud replacement products and has deployed strong policies to control the use of sensitive files. Eventually, he says, you still have to trust your users.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)