Risks to Consider When Evaluating Cloud Options

Date: July 9, 2014
Posted by Litcom Team
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Category: IT Assessment, IT Management

Cloud computing technology is a standout amongst the most prevalent recent innovations, rapidly becoming widespread. Technologies are meant to simplify human efforts and provide convenient usage of their products and services and there is little doubt about the fact that cloud computing has introduced a revolutionary answer for an extensive variety of businesses. In the meantime, one can’t disregard that cloud computing is a man-made innovation, and therefore vulnerable to various types of risks.

Risk assessment in the Cloud

The key to properly conducting a risk assessment in a cloud computing environment is to comprehend supplier options, various cloud models, common sense efforts to establish safety, and your organization’s exceptional and unique needs.

Here are 8 risks to consider when evaluating cloud computing options:

1. Security

Security continues to be the biggest cloud obstacle for many organizations. The cloud supplier’s security arrangements should be as strong as your organization’s data security necessities. Cloud frameworks that store an organization’s information should be updated or fixed on a routine basis. Vendors should likewise perform security vulnerability assessments or penetration tests frequently, which are carried out to guarantee that legitimate and physical security controls are set up. If also feasible, the physical area of an organization’s data should be properly secured too. One approach to minimize the issue is to study and inspect your supplier’s security arrangements, before signing a permanent agreement with them.

2. Cloud Compatibility

An alternate issue with the cloud is compatibility with all the IT frameworks in an organization. It is generally recognized today that cloud computing works out to be the most cost effective choice for organizations. Complications arise because the organization might need to reinstate much of its existing IT foundations for the end goal of making the framework compatible on the cloud.

3. Compliance of the Cloud

Much of an organization’s information, which is probably “off the cloud”, is basically put away on various servers, spanning across several geographic locations. This implies that if a certain focal point creates a problem and cannot be accessed, it may represent a genuine issue for the organization concerned. This concern might increase in relevance if the information is kept in a server of an alternate country. Organizations should discuss this issue with their suppliers in advance before beginning any work on cloud computing. The organization needs to make it clear that the supplier can completely assure accessibility throughout times of data transfer capacity interference and similar other issues that could arise.

4. Location of Data

The location of your organization’s information could pose a tremendous risk— not knowing the physical or virtual area of your information is an issue. This can happen if the cloud supplier moves the information to an alternate area without educating your organization. What happens if your data is put away in international areas and falls outside business or national laws and regulations? Knowing where your data is stored is important in avoiding risk as well.

5. Reliability

Your cloud supplier should not have service guidelines that clash with operational necessities. Poor framework reliability may prompt issues throughout peak system activity times — the cloud supplier may encounter framework execution issues that restrict your workforce from getting to the information or systems. Verify you have the right administration models set up in your agreement to avoid any unnecessary risk.

6. Sustainability

In the event that your supplier goes out of business or is not able to continue to operate efficiently, your organization may not have the capacity to recover its information. Throughout these sorts of situations, it’s possible that a third party may get access or control of your information. An alternate supportability issue may emerge if the supplier doesn’t have fitting framework recovery methods set up in the occasion of a disaster. Verify you have the right set up in case an occurrence of this potential risk arises.

7. Regulating Cloud Technology

A genuine issue connected with cloud computing is the present absence of standardization in the framework. Since no legitimate models for cloud computing are set up yet, it gets to be just about unthinkable for an organization to discover the nature of the quality of services they have been furnished with. To maintain a strategic distance from this potential trap, the organization needs to see whether the supplier uses standardized technology. On the off chance that the organization is not fulfilled by the quality of services provided, it can change the supplier without needing to acquire additional expenses for the same. In any case, this point should be clarified by the organization in its initial agreement.

8. Future Growth

Make sure that the supplier’s systems can scale to meet your expected development, both for a transient spike and to meet a long haul strategy. For instance, in the event that you utilize a cloud-based feature conferencing service, and the number of individuals joining in your meetings builds, the cloud supplier needs to have the data transmission to handle the increased number of attendees. If they don’t, pick another service provider.

In terms of risk assessment one thing is clear: Organizations need to consider all their alternatives and recognize what questions to ask so they are enabled to settle on the choice to move to the cloud. While cloud computing is not without its risks, reality remains that these dangers are most likely reasonable with some effort taken on the part of the organization involved. Once the above issues are determined, the rest of the procedure should go on easily, thus providing great benefits for the organization involved.

The Litcom Approach

Moving to the cloud can be an ideal proposition for small, medium and large sized organizations. At Litcom, we conduct a thorough assessment of your IT environment to determine how much of it can be moved to the cloud and what, if anything, is better suited to remain in-house.

Litcom has professionals who are experienced in developing and aligning business and IT strategy. We can help your business understand the benefits offered by cloud computing and help you determine where the focus should be for your first project. Litcom professionals have real world experience integrating virtualized and cloud based solutions. Contact us today! info@litcom.ca

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