Inventory the five hidden costs of cloud computing that are easily overlooked

The cost of cloud computing is very complex and controversial, and corporate IT managers tend to overlook the hidden costs of cloud computing in the process of accounting for capital spending and operating expenses. Symantec's recent cloud computing report lists five of the most overlooked cloud computing stealth costs: 1. The "Private cloud" of the business Unit 2. Cloud Backup 3. Cloud storage 4. Compliance and electronic Evidence 5. Data transmission. The IT Manager network compiles as follows:

Now, many companies are considering cloud computing strategy. In 2013, 94% of companies will start discussing the feasibility of using cloud computing or cloud services, up 19% from the previous year, according to a new Symantec study.

The reason companies flock to cloud computing is that they can reduce capital spending (CAPEX), make operational spending (OPEX) more manageable, scale up, manage easily, and provide disaster preparedness. Reference reading: The Battle of Cloud Model: capital expenditure vs operating expenditure

But according to Symantec's latest cloud-computing report, "avoiding the Hidden Costs's Cloud 2013 Survey" found that companies tend to overlook some of the hidden costs in accounting for cloud computing costs, underestimating the cost of capital or operating costs of cloud computing. Symantec's report surveyed 3,236 companies in 29 countries around the world, including 1358 small and medium-sized enterprises and 1878 large companies.

"This report covers a wide range of companies, and we spent 9 months planning this report, and it took 2 months to implement it," said Dave Elliott, senior product manager at Symantec's Global Cloud computing marketing department. Symantec finds that most companies are already planning or implementing cloud computing. Cloud computing is no longer a disembodied thing for businesses. But Dave Elliott that there are still many problems on the way to cloud computing:

"For companies, cloud computing has many hidden costs or problems that are often overlooked by companies." ”

Here are five of the most common hidden costs of enterprise cloud computing:

One, the business unit deploys "The private Cloud" (Rogue Cloud implementations)

77% of businesses have a business unit that deploys cloud computing applications that are not integrated with the IT department or with the enterprise's IT infrastructure. This is called "Rogue Cloud Implementation" (Let's say "private Cloud"), which is more prevalent in big companies, with 83% of large business respondents admitting that there was a Rogue Cloud implementation last year, and 70% SMEs.

Dave Elliott said: "The situation has not improved, in fact, 79% of companies believe that this may be more common this year." ”

Rogue Cloud implementation often cause problems. In enterprises with rogue Cloud implementation, 40% of enterprises have had the problem of revealing sensitive information. More than 25% of companies have had their accounts stolen, causing web pages to be tampered with or some other loss.

"By centralizing cloud computing, you can enjoy the flexibility and cost savings of cloud computing while avoiding the risk of data security due to rogue Cloud implementation," said Francis DeSouza, head of the Symantec Enterprise Product and Services Division.

Ii. Cloud Backup and recovery issues

The survey report also reveals the complexities of cloud computing backup and recovery. Dave Elliot said: "Many companies in the rush to transform the cloud in the process, did not seriously consider the importance of backup and recovery." 61% of respondents used 2 to 3 programs to back up their physical, virtual, and cloud data. This is inefficient and leads to a rise in learning costs.

In addition, 43% of enterprises (47% of large enterprises and 38% of Small and medium-sized enterprises) have been "lost" data in the cloud. The "lost" here may be the loss of data by the enterprise, or the removal or loss of data by the cloud service provider. To make matters worse, 68% of businesses have experienced lost data recovery failures.

The recovery failed here, including those that eventually recovered, but did not recover in time for the enterprise's requirements. More than 22% of businesses say it takes more than 2-3 days to recover data from a cloud-data disaster.

Third, inefficient cloud storage

The simplicity of cloud storage has led to an increase in hidden costs. The reason many companies like cloud storage is that you can only pay the cost you need to use. This is theoretically the case, however, which requires the enterprise to manage the stored data very efficiently. In fact, enterprise storage data usage is generally more than 50%. However, in the area of cloud storage, data usage is much lower. The average is only 17%. Big companies are better off, averaging 26% of their usage. and small and medium-sized Enterprise cloud storage data usage rate is only 7%. Moreover, 50% of enterprises admit that they do not have data de-duplication for cloud storage.

IV. Compliance and electronic evidence requirements

Dave Elliot said: "Many organizations are concerned about the compliance with cloud data management in the clouds, and they are particularly interested in how to justify their compliance with cloud computing." 23% of companies have been fined for privacy leaks. As more and more data move to the cloud, there will be more regulations to govern how cloud data is managed. Therefore, you need to consider the problem of cloud computing from the compliance requirements of the Organization as a whole. ”

The survey reported that 49% of companies are concerned about how to meet compliance requirements, and 53% of companies do not know how to prove they can achieve compliance.

In addition, companies are concerned about how cloud computing can satisfy electronic evidence. One-third of companies said they had been asked to provide electronic evidence of cloud data, while two-thirds of them were fined or brought other legal risks without being offered within a specified period of time. 51% of businesses have no way to find the data they require.

V. Issues of data transmission

Managing an increasing number of SSL certificates would have been a problem for the enterprise. Cloud computing has exacerbated the problem. Cloud assets, such as personal information, transaction information, financial information, etc., in the process of transmission, the need for SSL certificates to ensure the security of transmission.

SSL encryption is a cornerstone of cloud computing, and organizations must effectively manage SSL certificates. Then in the survey, only 27% of the companies considered it easier to manage the SSL certificates associated with the cloud. Most businesses think it's pretty complicated. 40% of enterprises cannot determine the SSL certificate management of their cloud service providers, and can meet the internal requirements of SSL certificate management within the enterprise.

How to avoid these hidden costs, enterprise IT managers need to follow the following four principles:

First, focus on it policies and regulations and personnel education, rather than technology and platform itself.

Second, strict policies, implementation and supervision of regulations.

Third, using platform-independent tools to reduce migration costs

Four, delete cloud duplicate data