How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud

Can we all agree that the word “cloud” is just about the worst possible choice for instilling confidence in where you are being asked to store your data? The scientific definition represents a collection of minute particles that lacks real substance and is ephemeral in nature. Other uses of the word have been in reference to something that is threatening and ominous (“cloud of suspicion”, etc.). Simply terrible word choice!

We continue to hear many concerns from existing and potential clients regarding “the cloud.” Fear stemming from confusion surrounding cloud services has left many companies stuck in a reality of paper based workflows, or sometimes even worse, a homespun implementation of a data center that most likely involves a rack of server equipment stuffed in a closet and “managed” by a local “computer guy” company.

Let’s take a look at the 10 questions that we hear most often:

1. What is “the cloud” anyway?
   It is access to computing and data storage resources which are managed by a third party and not located on your property (“off-premise”). Translation…outsourcing IT hardware ownership and maintenance because it is not your core business. The opposite of this is “on-premise,” which involves buying your own servers, storing them, maintaining them, ensuring security, etc.
2. What if the cloud service is offline? How will my company function? Most cloud services contractually guarantee at least 99.9% uptime. This corresponds to a maximum of 45 minutes of downtime per month. You are VERY unlikely to be able to achieve similar results unless you make data center management your primary business and I don’t think that you want to do that. It is almost impossible to get accurate numbers on how much downtime the average “on premise” solution experiences because of their lack of maturity and inability to accurately quantify this sort of thing. Best guesses are closer to 70 minutes per month of downtime, but the bottom line is that you can’t compete in this space… even if you have a team of technicians dedicated to it.
3. What if our office loses internet connectivity? How will my company function?
   Most mature cloud products include accommodations for poor client side network connectivity or offline work in general. Your staff should be able to continue to do work. It will likely be limited in some way by the lack of connection, but complete shutdown should not be your fate. For instance, Box (cloud file sharing) saves documents to a local synched folder which will update the cloud copy of the file as soon as connectivity is reestablished.
4. Do I need to, or can I, back up cloud data locally?
   Many cloud solutions provide this option even though it is unlikely that it will provide a truly additional layer of fault tolerance to their offering. If you have a specific disaster recovery requirement for a local copy or it simply allows you to sleep at night, then it is likely a request that the cloud service can fulfill in a seamless way. Any decent cloud solution will be providing fault tolerance on their side which involves off-site backup copies of your data and most likely automatic failover to a redundant data center in the event of a failure at their primary site.
5. Isn’t my data more at risk of being stolen when it is in the cloud?
   Most cloud companies desire a customer base that spans various industries which often require specific security certifications for data protection. For example, HIPAA (Health Care), FINRA (Financial) and FERPA (Education) all have specific requirements. There are numerous, very stringent guidelines and accompanying certifications in place for these industries. Any reputable cloud company will gladly prove their compliance status to you. Regardless of your specific industry’s need to meet this level of compliance, you benefit from the solution provider’s desire to acquire and maintain customers from the industries with the most sensitive data.
6. If my data is in the cloud with a bunch of other customers, doesn’t that increase the risk that they will see my data or that an incident involving another company will impact me?
   While all cloud providers should absolutely have data segregation in place at the software layer, there are additional steps that many of them can take, if requested, to ensure the privacy of your information. They can limit access to only a range of IP addresses that come specifically from the computers/devices in your organization, essentially making it an extension of your intranet rather than open to the entire internet. They can further segregate customer data by storing it on dedicated servers and they can provide customer specific encryption keys for the data which should be encrypted both as it travels and when it is at rest. All of these things make it very difficult for a breach or even a subpoena specific to one client to have an impact on other clients. That said, it would be disingenuous to claim that a large cloud company does not provide a larger and higher profile target for those who wish to test the safeguards that are in place.
7. What if I have a whole lot of data? Am I just supposed to upload it to the internet? That could take forever.
   If you have very large data upload needs, many cloud solutions offer the ability for you to provide them with physical media (encrypted hard drive, etc.) containing the data so that it can be directly imported. Once the initial import has been taken care of, internet upload speeds should be sufficient for the comparatively small amount of new data that is produced on a daily basis.
8. What if the company providing the cloud services goes out of business?
   Just because “the cloud” is not inherently evil, it also does not make it an industry which consists of 100% flawless companies. There are many different types of cloud solutions and before diving into any of them, particularly with mission critical data or processes, you should conduct due diligence to ensure that you are comfortable with whatever level of risk you are putting in their hands. If a cloud provider does happen to go out of business, they almost always provide reasonable methods for you to receive all of your data so that it can be moved to another solution or taken in-house.
9. Why would I choose a cloud version of a roughly equivalent on-premise solution?
   In addition to the benefits highlighted already, (less costly, more easily managed, more reliable, etc.) cloud products are pushed by their competition to be more innovative and more properly designed. On-premise solutions are generally a bigger lift to implement and even harder to get rid of once they are in place. It is also much easier for them to take shortcuts when integrating with other systems that you may be using. A cloud solution provider is forced by their disconnected, stand-alone nature to have clean and standardized integration strategies.
10. Are the products in the cloud any better than those made for on-premise?
    In general, cloud solutions tend to be more innovative and exploratory. The once technically difficult to achieve and resource intensive components of business tier solutions have been commoditized to the point where there is more competition in the cloud space and the players are more acutely focused on solving business problems of all sizes.

Combat your fears with knowledge and proceed with love for the cloud!

Clear Blue Design — We Make Software That People Love

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