How can businesses determine if this is the right solution for them?
A cloud solution has many benefits, but these need to be fully understood before choosing to a solution that takes partial control out of the IT department and places it with a third-party provider.
Simplicity through centralization offers fully scalable and flexible cloud solutions that most large enterprises would envy. This advantage allows both small and medium-sized businesses accessibility to multiple data center infrastructures without having to implement and administer them directly and without the additional cost of hardware.
The centralization of security in a cloud service enables access to be instantaneously revoked in the case of job cuts and layoffs. Disabling accounts and remote access are just as important as returning a laptop and security badge.
Cloud hosting has a low cost of entry, with the primary savings resulting from the lack of capital expenditures needed for equipment, applications and licenses. The cost savings do not end at the server when you consider the irrelevancy of the in-house systems administrators.
What are some of the disadvantages of cloud solutions?
Security of confidential data is the greatest weakness currently in cloud computing due to the lack of control over the business data. Customer information is considered a business’s most valuable asset. In the health care industry, government rules mandate the privacy of personal medical information, bringing to light inadequacies in cloud solutions.
Performance in a cloud environment is based on all sites competing for the hardware resources. If multiple website usage spikes coincidentally, it can result in noticeable performance degeneration. Additionally, the capacity for scalability is vague, creating the possibility of over-exceeding capacity as the website resource requirements grow.
Costs related to cloud solutions give businesses a hands-free method to scale their hosting costs. However, some financially surprising problems can arise. Automatic scaling tends to make businesses ‘relax’ in regard to paying attention to usage. If not monitored properly, this can result in excessive internal usage as well as misappropriated use by hackers. One method used by hackers consists of a simple low-level Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which, contrary to typical viruses, keeps the site running but at a very busy pace. Since cloud hosting is based on pay-for-usage, the costs can spin wildly out of control. Daily attention is required to monitor this type of usage.
Chris Jones is the network/infrastructure administrator at ATW Management Inc. Reach him at [email protected] or (866) 452-0563.
