Industry experts point to cloud computing misunderstanding

Today, cloud computing is becoming increasingly mainstream. In the Asia-Pacific region, about two-thirds of companies say they will increase their budget for cloud computing spending next year.

Clearly, policymakers in most Asian companies are already fully aware of the advantages of cloud computing, and the advantages are manifold. These benefits include the ability to deliver more robust business agility and lower costs (including a range of costs from it capital investment to operational spending). Basically, cloud computing is becoming a key tool to help companies gain competitive advantage today. It has risen to the height of strategic issues.

Still, there are some misconceptions about understanding through cloud computing, especially public cloud computing. 　The most common misconceptions are as follows:

• Cloud computing is less secure than enterprise internal software. 　　
• Cloud computing is only suitable for consumers and small businesses; 　　
• Cloud computing does not apply to mission-critical activities.
• Private Cloud offers more benefits and no drawbacks.

Myth 1: Similarly, cloud computing is not as good as enterprise internal software security

Currently, there is no evidence that cloud computing is less secure than enterprise internal software.

In fact, there are a number of strong arguments to prove these conclusions. In many ways, cloud computing is inherently more secure than software within the enterprise. Most security vulnerabilities are caused by human error. In cloud computing, more automation is used to reduce the likelihood of human error. In addition, enterprise internal systems are often distributed in nature, so there are more points of vulnerability. Cloud architecture is more concentrated and has few vulnerabilities.

Moreover, cloud service providers tend to focus more on security than most individual organizations. For them, a security breach could destroy the entire business and reputation of the service provider.

In recent years, significant security vulnerabilities have nothing to do with cloud computing. Sony, the U.S. Department of Defense, the British government and other recent major security risks are the result of human error and poor process control. In a cloud environment it is easier to manage these two factors than within the enterprise.

Myth 2: Cloud computing is only for consumers and small businesses

Obviously, this is not true because there are many examples of large enterprises using private cloud and public cloud services. Generally, it is considered that public cloud services are not suitable for enterprise use. The most famous example of a large enterprise that runs a public cloud in

is Netflix, a 2 billion-dollar enterprise. It mainly runs cloud computing on AmazonEC2. In the Asia-Pacific region, even large corporate financial services institutionsIn the use of public cloud services. For example, the Federal Bank's subsidiary Bankwest (using SuccessFactors). The services of Salesforce.com, NetSuite and concur are also widely used by enterprises.

More SaaS is the key business unit of a large enterprise, not a smaller enterprise.

Indeed, due to the regulatory and compliance constraints involved. Has curbed some companies in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in the financial services sector, using public cloud services. However, this only involves customer data. There are more areas of application, such as human resources, ERP and accounting loans without regulatory restrictions

Myth 3: Cloud computing is not suitable for mission-critical activities

Admittedly, cloud computing does not really fit into critical business activities in some cases. However, there are also examples of mission-critical workloads using cloud computing.

For example, Netflix uses Amazon's services in its mission-critical activities. We see more and more of the various workloads moving to cloud services, including the public cloud. Public cloud service providers now offer improved SLAs, similar to other service providers around mission-critical activities.

Given the increased use of smartphones and tablets by senior managers, they want to work on these devices and need to drive mission-critical cloud services. These mobile devices carry very small amounts of data that can be accessed remotely in a cloud environment. The

Public cloud service also provides important mission-critical workload services with high business agility.

Finally, 67% of the server infrastructure is virtualized. Virtualization is a key step towards cloud computing.

Myth 4: Private Cloud offers more benefits and no drawbacks

security issues are often the reason why public cloud computing is not as private as it is understood. However, there is no evidence that private clouds are more secure than public clouds. In fact, most public clouds deploy best practice security policies and procedures. It is not only the private cloud that deploys. The

Private cloud offers many different types of benefits. Typically, the private cloud does not provide the services provided by the following public cloud:

· 　　Opex model, not capex model. 　　
• Public clouds can provide as much scalability as possible. 　　
• The public cloud can be shared with the associated economies of scale.
• Less need for service and scarce skills support.
 

(editor: Heritage)