Cloud Computing Tips For Small Businesses
The coolest business trend in the last couple of years has been moving to the cloud and even though cloud computing began as a buzzword among CIOs from huge companies in a bid to streamline the maintenance of their IT systems and reduce costs it has proved useful for all kinds of businesses.
One of the major issues of cloud computing is security, and even though there have not been any major problems reported with cloud services, there is always an uncertainty when a business owner puts all their IT infrastructure in an offsite that is out of their control. Cloud computing addresses such security issues and makes sure that the business information is not placed in a compromising position.
A known fact is that cloud-based providers are specialized in security and most vendors of cloud computing services take security somberly, and they run a very complicated business by operating infrastructure that services many companies across the planet. Cloud computing providers are certified in security related regulations, and they are frequently audited at frequent intervals by renown firms, and they implement physical safety and access control measures that are very tight on the premises of the provider. They also have ID privileges, and authentication safeguards for infrastructure and data access and they also have staff that keeps up to date with the most recent events in the security industry in regard to software, remote loading, and mobile device jammers.
It is good to note that when considering moving the IT systems to a cloud-based provider the person needs to implement a careful asset management and mapping within the organization which identifies all the IT assets including software and hardware assets. A known fact is that hardware assets include things like servers to printers whereas software assets cover everything that pertains to software solutions that the company currently uses. The software mapping is crucial, and it should include comprehensive information on the current security processes that exist for each software module or solution which includes the access types available, backdoor accesses available, past breaches, fail-safe options and user privilege levels that exist. The truth is that this exercise should include security and access audits whose results would be critical when creating the contract requirements with the provider.
If a business owner contracts the cloud-hosting provider for the requirements related to maintenance of the IT systems, software, and infrastructure most security related issues are handled from the vendor’s end. It is good to remember that there are some processes that need to happen from the client end that can open up loopholes for data thieves and hackers to exploit and one of these points of vulnerability at the customer’s end is related to the ID’s and passwords used by the personnel when logging into management and remote administration tools installed by the cloud service provider.
