On the risk-benefit of cloud computing

"There are three kinds of lies: ordinary Lies, damned lies, and statistics," said Mark Twain, a famous American writer and humorist. "There are many kinds of information deception, and the use of statistics to cover up the truth is a more common one." Around us, such examples abound. According to statistics, in the past decade, the United States has died in the average annual death of more than 40,000 car accidents. You may conclude that road driving is dangerous, especially for walking. However, when you compare the two, you should consider both their risks and advantages. Will you lose your car and walk 10 miles to work? The answer is, of course, negative. In other words, the convenience of cars is far more convenient than the risk.

This is also true for air travel. We can't deny that the accident happened, but it was a small, even insignificant part of the accident, compared to the number of flights taking off and landing thousands of a day. And in the IT world, so is cloud computing--a huge advantage that hides some of the risks behind it.

This is clearly a dangerous way of traveling when air travel is born. However, with the development of advanced technology and knowledge over the years, the safety factor of air travel has been increasing, and it has become the most popular way of travel, because it is obvious that the shortest time to cover the farthest distance. Thanks to significant savings in time and increased comfort, many passengers are willing to abandon cars and trains and choose relatively expensive aircraft. In some ways, airplanes have even addressed security concerns, and statistics show that airplanes are the safest form of transportation. In fact, the researchers believe that in the 9.11 incident, the American casualties of Qaeda's destruction of routes were even more severe than the attack on the Twin towers.

Today, cloud computing is as much a plane as it was decades ago-with limitless potential and some obvious drawbacks. Although the sound of speculation, but as a relatively young new technology, cloud computing inevitably encounter some running-in problems. In fact, many problems have gradually surfaced, especially in the area of cloud security. Second, the ambiguity of cloud computing contracts, the lack of cloud computing standards, and the lack of service quality of cloud service providers are issues that cannot be overlooked.

However, given the enormous potential of cloud technology in terms of profitability, these problems are momentarily insignificant. In particular, the benefits of cloud computing have been magnified over time, and the problem is diminishing. Imagine, if you find a stock, this stock can bring you a 50% probability of return per year as high as 90%, and the probability of depreciation is only 5%, then you will not buy it? and suppose, if the probability of this stock's rise increases by 1% a year, and correspondingly, the probability of a fall is 1%, then what is your answer? ?

I wonder if you have heard of Batna? BATNA, that is, the best negotiation protocol, refers to the procurement in the negotiation process, the buyer in order to balance between the supply and demand of the best alternative, that is, the second option, is set to the best bottom line of negotiations. By extending this concept to the computing world, as long as cloud computing becomes the best alternative to the future of the traditional IT infrastructure, migrating to the cloud is the right choice.

As the best alternative for the future, what does cloud computing give us? In fact, cloud computing has enormous potential in terms of cost savings, scalability and disaster recovery, in addition to the obvious benefits of being a mature technology. However, cloud computing also has some risks.

MacDonnell Ulsch is president and chief risk analyst at the Boston Zeropoint risk research firm. Recently, Ulsch, who served as keynote speaker at the Washington Information Technology conference held by the Federal Financial Institutions Inspection Commission (Financial institutions Examination Council, "Ffiec"), moved to the "cloud" Potential pitfalls Ulsch published his own view: "To a certain extent, the United States today's prosperity depends on continuous technological innovation." There is no doubt that America is the technology leader. But while developing new and new applications, many times we cannot reasonably assess their regulatory and risk issues. Failure to meet the minimum requirements for data security and privacy laws is often a trigger for high security risks. "

Data show that over the past 6 months, 5 billion electronic records have been damaged in the United States. Cloud computing may be blamed for this, but given that cloud computing has brought in tens of billions of of billions of dollars in cost savings and will continue to magnify in the future, the drawbacks of cloud computing are correspondingly small. That's why companies, even the most secure institutions, such as financial institutions and the U.S. military, are embracing cloud computing.

Vivek Kundra, a recently-departed US federal former chief information officer, argues that the federal government's refusal to use cloud computing-"concerns about security and privacy"-is "unfounded absurd excuses". In the traditional it model of vendor engagement in government contracts, the vendor's expertise is not a superior technology or innovation capability, but rather a process of managing complex procurement processes. In his view, the IT model is obsolete.

"We cannot follow stereotypes in the current tough fiscal environment," Kundra said. This is part of the reason we are developing the ' cloud first ' strategy. We realize that significant it innovations are unlikely to emerge in the old it paradigm. In the old IT model, the IT Alliance (it cartel), people increase the success rate of a bid by maximizing the interest chain as much as possible. "

All in all, as a new technology, cloud computing does pose some pitfalls and may continue to exist in the next few years. However, it is a fact that cloud computing is the future of the IT world. The sooner an enterprise recognizes this, the easier it is to succeed.