The eight risks and related solutions of cloud computing

October 9, the International Organization for Standardization "Open Group" (TOG) is committed to the development of enterprise architecture. Tog's Chris Harding and his co-author team have detailed a list of risk areas in their latest work, "cloud Computing in Enterprise", a common problem when deploying all cloud projects.

Risk One: Solutions may not meet financial goals

To avoid these risks, be sure to do both Short-and long-term ROI. Key elements for assessing cloud ROI risk probability include utilization, speed, scale and quality. These elements are reflected in most ROI models, and affect investment, revenue, cost, and time spent in the capital.

Risk two: The solution cannot work properly in the organizational and cultural context of the user enterprise

This often makes business headaches. The best solution is to "set a clear target and direction for the transformation of the enterprise", which naturally includes the support of senior executives. Specifically, this includes developing a clear roadmap for the procurement and use of cloud services and applications, as well as coordinating stakeholders and competitive strategies to gain a common understanding of storage, computing, networking, and applications, and avoiding the use of islands of demand. Remember to always build confidence from the pilot and try to purchase and deploy cloud services within the user community.

Risk three: The implementation of the solution is limited by cloud service consolidation difficulties

Consolidating cloud services into existing systems or other cloud services is not an overnight matter. The hidden risks are worth our vigilance because if the system cannot be successfully established, let alone use it. The risk of service consolidation can be assessed in terms of interface switching costs, the ability to change existing systems, and existing skills. Among them, existing skills can be regarded as their own risk, as Dr Harding and his team have said, "to assemble and tailor multiple cloud services from different vendors in a flexible and adaptable manner while ensuring security, backup and management mechanisms, and excellent skills are essential." ”

Risk IV: Solutions fail to comply with legal, contractual and moral obligations

Reliance on external cloud vendors increases the likelihood of non-compliance. Instant your cloud contract provides a necessary guarantee of location and confidentiality, and force majeure will still prevent the supplier from fulfilling its obligations. For example, what are the consequences of legal action to subpoena the data in the cloud environment (data may not necessarily be in your name lease, but with other tenants sharing the same system)? What impact will it have on your corporate reputation?

Risk V: Solution cannot recover from disaster

For companies, the bankruptcy of cloud providers or the banning of contracts can turn into a "catastrophe". As part of the risk analysis, you should anticipate the contingencies that may endanger you and assess their possibilities and influence. For emergencies that disrupt cloud services or damage data, you may wish to draw up a provision in advance. You can add elements to your system design to reduce risk probability or mitigate adverse effects. For example, an effective backup and recovery process, either storing the backup copy separately from the original data, or saving the data on your own server rather than the cloud vendor's system, will help you reduce the risk level and even save you the effort. ”

Risk VI: Poor system quality, difficult to meet customer needs.

"In assessing the quality of external service systems, we can refer to the self-built system, which is in fact consistent with the evaluation parameters," he said. "In addition, Dr Harding and his co-authors suggested that a closer look at the supplier's track record would be like treating any outsourced service provider."

Seven risks: security needs to be improved

Do you need to say more? Using your own hardware to manage your own information, the traditional model provides a level of security that is unmatched by cloud computing. "But cloud computing does not amount to insecurity, but cloud computing needs more consideration and more modern security models to be developed and deployed to ensure security," Harding said. You have to adjust the traditional security model to meet the needs of cloud computing while considering the security of End-to-end (End-to-end), including building access control and internal policies on user Configuration. ”

Risk eight: lack of service positioning

I want to add one more to the directory listed by the Open group, which is the lack of existing service positioning. While immature service-oriented architectures (service-oriented architecture, referred to as SOA) do not necessarily pose risks in migrating to the cloud, the panic of migrating from existing interfaces and underlying applications to more agile cloud services can really mess up a lot, Ultimately, the cost of cloud computing is greatly increased, which we naturally do not want to see.

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)