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Private cloud an IT manager’s guide

Eliminate security concerns with a cloud storage solution that provides the security and flexibility your business needs. Security issues tend to be among the first topics to come up whenever cloud-based solutions are discussed; cloud storage security, cloud email security, and other cloud security risks. But they’re not the only issues. In fact, all four big ones – security, scalability, flexibility, and accessibility – aren’t so much problems as positives.

Compare a cloud solution to an on-premise solution. With storage and applications within your own walls, you’re sinking resources into a solution where costs aren’t shared, obsolescence is a risk, and burst capacity or growth potential may be limited. Even the most basic public clouds, including simple ones like DropBox and SkyDrive, give you high levels of security and encryption – while the costs of using them are amortised between everyone who’s signed up.

Of course, this doesn’t change one fact: it’s a rare IT director who trusts 100% of his corporate data to public clouds.

Cloud is about more than storage, and many companies have very specific goals for their cloud solution. They’re about high-bandwidth communications, collaborative working, unified messaging and complete application infrastructures. For your organisation to make the most of the cloud, they all need to be there, working together 24/7.

Hence the rise of private cloud solutions – a highly secure data environment built for your business needs and ready to expand with you. Here’s some cloud security guidance if you’re thinking about taking the plunge.

Serving up security

The average enterprise uses ten times more cloud services than IT knows about.

Simple public clouds are often used without the approval of IT. One study suggested that the typical large business uses 738 such services, with fewer than 70 being within the IT manager’s purview.

A private cloud reduces the opportunity for these cloud security risks to build up, by bringing the company’s set of applications and data together in the same cloud. Outside your walls, but within your control. If you’re researching cloud services, check your choice gives you a broad range of application support.

Sorting out scalability

The two biggest users of clouds are banking and government.

With businesses moving more and more applications into the cloud, scalability matters – and with entire data centres dedicated to their customers, vendors offer it at competitive prices. But perhaps the biggest benefit of a private cloud is that it sizes to your needs, all the time.

That means both steadily adjusting from quarter to quarter, and offering burst capacity and other actions to keep all your plates spinning under extreme loads. Make sure any cloud you consider can handle both smooth and sudden growth.

Fixing up flexibility

69% of SMBs now use cloud applications.

Of growing importance in the workplace are the millennials – those born since 1980 – and the very different work patterns they expect from their employers. They’ve grown up on the web and don’t want to be told they can’t use their own phone or tablet at work; to them, technology is personal.

A private cloud (or a public one) lets them connect and collaborate, using approved applications and secure data, wherever they are working. See how your cloud choice resonates with the needs of tomorrow’s workforce.

Adding in accessibility

Half of all Europeans accessed cloud services from outside their home or office last year.

Cloud solutions aren’t limited to databases and productivity software; the best private clouds bring in traditional telephony too, seamlessly integrating calls and conferencing with data and software (without the international call charges!). Over time, the savings can be huge. Check if your cloud service can handle telephony without the joints showing.

While public clouds can do many of the same jobs in a one-size-fits-all way, these four areas are where private clouds excel. If you’re looking for some cloud security guidance, why not see how a private solution could unify your data and applications across your whole business?

Takeaways:

• Public clouds are great, but one size doesn’t fit all
• Private clouds can be shaped to your precise business needs
• Clouds are about the applications as much as the storage
• The millennial generation want what the cloud can offer.

Discover how the flexibility of the cloud can benefit your employees by downloading: The connected business: Anywhere, anytime, anyhow empowering a flexible workforce

To download this eGuide please copy and paste this link into your URL browser: http://bit.ly/21z9wqK

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ryan O’Reilly .