Are you SURE you are ready for the cloud? : Security of business – Part 2

Cloud secured via a lock keyhole - part 2 of a series

To carry on from my last POST, another situation may be providing better customer facing apps.  This is one of the most common reasons why companies go in the cloud direction.  If your customer facing applications are busy all the time, the cloud can provide a more robust environment at a cheaper cost than you may be paying for co-location services with a third party company.

Alternately, another reason companies move, is the backup capabilities that the cloud provides.  This is sometimes overlooked when companies start evaluating if they should take advantage of the cloud.  Some cloud providers offer managed services, which take care of your instances on a more personal level.  How?

Depending on your cloud provider, it could mean keeping your instances patched on the operating system, backing up your instances to another facility, or taking snapshots of your instances and putting them on separate storage.   One cloud provider I worked with actually helped me customize my environment so I could do my own form of managed services through automated scripts.  This practically negated the need to have the client pay for the managed services to begin with.

Do you need managed services?  That is a question you need to answer for yourself.  There are added expenses if you choose to have managed services, but it can also They allow you to trim down your support teams that are taking care of your systems.  That is something you really need to think about thoroughly first.

So, we have two of the main reasons why most companies in my experience move to the cloud, financial and security of business.  But if now you have your reasons why you should move to the cloud, you still have to answer one question: “Where do I start?”

We will cover that topic in more detail in my next Post