Security and servers - the stumbling blocks to the Cloud

On 9th August, Amazon’s EC2 Cloud Computing service experienced another crash, which took down major websites like Foursquare, Netflix and Instagram, as well as millions of users. Unlike the outage that took place in April, the service was quickly restored, however, it yet again raised concerns about Cloud computing and companies that move data from onsite to hosted services. 

 

The impact of the outage was documented in a recent article featured in CNN’s Fortune magazine. The article highlighted four keys areas of concern that still persist when it comes to Cloud adoption: outages, security, servers and confusion. 

 

Outages, security, servers and confusion are certainly four major barriers to cloud adoption and we have seen these four stumbling blocks being much debated in the industry as reasons against making a transition to the cloud. The recent Amazon outage, and the one which occurred in April, stick in people’s minds when it comes to concerns about hosted services. The important thing to realise is outages occur, whether it is our computers at home, in the office or in Cloud data centres. For this reason, we need to ensure that processes are in place in the event of this happening, in order to ensure that we continue working fully and that security is at no point jeopardised. 

 

Security is key when it comes to Cloud computing. We still hear of instances where providers store customer credentials on the servers that house the data. This is not acceptable and in the event of a data breach puts all customers at risk. In essence, there needs to be a bigger emphasis on the security of other people’s information; by doing this the number of threats which persist around Cloud adoption will certainly reduce. 

 

As already highlighted, servers will be prone to cyber attacks and breaches. Time and time again it is proved that if a hacker wants access, they’ll get it. In the event of this happening providers need to ensure that any information that is stored on servers that can be used or contains highly sensitive customer information, is undetectable to the criminals. Security is paramount and absolute measures must be taken in order to protect customer’s private information. 

 

An example of this would be complete data security. If people need to access data in the Cloud they should be able to do so, knowing that their personal information is safe. Cloud service providers should not be storing user credentials on their servers so hackers can access file stores. All their files should be sandboxed away from other users, not traceable back to them and secured in such away that if there is a server breach they are not readable.

 

In terms of confusion, this has been something created by the industry itself. Cloud computing is very simple; the problem lies with too much jargon and misconception existing around it. If some of these buzz words and myths were taken away a lot of the issues over the understanding of Cloud would be removed.

 

Further still, ease of access is another area, which possess a threat. In many instances people need to access information in inconvenient places, be it on a busy street or a crowded bus. According to analyst house IDC, approximately 1.2 billion people now work remotely and this figure is set to grow year on year. This is adding to the pressure for employees to provide easy access and secure access to corporate information for employees working remotely. In difficult or busy conditions accessing data on your smartphone can be a difficult and time-consuming process.

 

Access needs to be simpler, with the ability for full text search and easier icon controlled interfaces. Equally as important, security must be made a priority so that people can access all types of data via a smartphone both safely and efficiently.

 

Once the industry addresses this, I believe we’ll start to see a greater uptake of Cloud services, with end users able to see the true benefits it brings.