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Keep company data secure in the Cloud
Star's James Griffin says the future of securing company data is in the Cloud
One of the topics that is regularly aired in discussions of cloud computing - serving content and applications from a third party data centre - is that of security. It has turned into a broken record and there is a big question as to whether there is any substance behind the claim. So what are the security implications of switching to a managed service provider to host and secure mission critical application and data and is the 'cloud' as secure as running applications and databases in-house?
Star's own research of Business Managers reveals a growing confidence in the security of third party data centres. The largest group of respondents surveyed (44%) believe that their data is more secure in a professionally managed data centre, with round the clock support, rather than on their own computers based at their office sites and managed by their own internal IT people. Additionally, by placing company data into a data centre, businesses also benefit from instant business continuity and resiliency as data is backed up and protected in accordance with strict service levels.
It is no longer a daunting prospect to have a third party become the guardian of your company data, but it is important to know what measures the provider has taken to ensure the appropriate security measures are in place. UK businesses are moving to cloud based services in large numbers but when considering outsourcing IT services it is important to look at both the technology used to protect the data. Having recently completed the project of building our own purpose built data centre in Bristol, the issue of security was a key consideration as it is vital that the customer is confident in our ability to guarantee performance and protect against downtime.
Every data centre needs to ensure a multi-layered approach to security, which includes intrusion detection, file-level encryption, enterprise grade firewalls and authentication processes. For many small to medium sized organisations in the UK replicating this level of security, from installing, configuring and managing the systems, would require a level of maintenance and investment in man hours that is unsustainable in-house. Moreover as all the systems in the data centre are monitored round the clock, any potential threats or issues can be detected and dealt with before they have the chance to become an issue.
Given this level of investment in the very best the security industry has to offer and water tight Service Level Agreements (SLAs), it is becoming increasingly common for CIOs to consider their data safer when looked after by such a managed services provider. For a long time now the accepted wisdom is that large amounts of money are safer in a bank vault than under the mattress. We can't hope to begin to sustainably apply the same levels of security to our money as our banks do. Company applications and their respective data are following the same path, as few organisations can replicate the levels of security, resiliency and round the clock monitoring to keep systems operating at their optimum state 24/7.
In addition to better security, CIOs are also looking for increased power density, driven by virtualisation. Furthermore, with the added benefit of providing easy and secure remote access to business applications and data anytime and anywhere, UK businesses now have the resiliency, flexibility, agility and business continuity they are looking for.
Entrusting your data to a third party means that it is a highly secure, resilient environment with round the clock monitoring, guaranteed up-time and availability. With the pressure on all IT departments to make savings and stretch their budgets, it makes sense for organisations to place the management of mission critical services in the hands of those whose business it is to guarantee performance and protect against any risk of downtime and security breaches.
James Griffin, Head of Hosting Strategy at Star
www.star.co.uk
