ENTERPRISE

Control Your Cloud (Part 1)

6/14/2013 9:01:34 AM

Integration, management tools & usage policies

Cloud computing can be a great solution for companies looking to ease the burdens on their internal infrastructure or to add a little extra capacity when necessary. But the cloud can also come with control issues that may make you question whether or not it was worth it to invest in the technology. Dave Bartoletti, senior analyst with Forrester Research (www.forrester.com), says the private cloud isn’t as big of an offender because the “ownership still stays within your four walls.” But the public cloud, in particular, he says, is susceptible to loss of control because “if you’re doing something in a public cloud sphere and starting out there, it’s a fundamental shift in how you’ve done business.”

The cloud can also come with control issues that may make you question whether or not it was worth it to invest in the technology

The cloud can also come with control issues that may make you question whether or not it was worth it to invest in the technology

Bartoletti says enterprises will experiment with the cloud using SaaS (software as a service) solutions, but the simple fact that SaaS involves off-site computing can cause companies to feel a loss of control almost immediately. Cloud computing also brings security issues to the forefront, because businesses may feel like they are “losing control of ownership of the data,” says Bartoletti, while the IT team may feel as though they are “losing control over how technology decisions are made in general.”

No company wants to feel like they have little or no control over a solution or service, which is why it’s important to do research up front. But if you have already implemented a cloud environment and want to tighten the reins, it isn’t too late. You can still pin-point where any issues originate and institute new solutions or policies that will help you regain control.

Improve your overall cloud integration

John Sloan, lead research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com), would add company-wide integration to the list of factors that lead to loss of control. It may seem like a great idea at first to take advantage of the cloud through data and application migration. But if you don’t plan ahead, you may end up “juggling a bunch of islands” and experiencing “poor integration between your internal resources and the cloud,” Sloan says.

When it comes to data integration, “you may have data in a cloud service”

When it comes to data integration, “you may have data in a cloud service”

With application integration, you may move some apps to the cloud and leave others within the organization, possibly as part of a hybrid cloud environment. Then, you may realize down the road that you need these two apps to communicate with one another in order for them to work properly. You’ve already paid for the capacity you need to house that application in the cloud, so you have to decide whether to pull it back, move your other app to the cloud, or figure out a way to patch them together after the fact. When it comes to data integration, “you may have data in a cloud service” as well as “related data internally, so now you have two silos of data,” says Sloan. Your data then becomes fragmented and it’s difficult to know which one is your “single version of the truth,” he says.

The last piece of integration that can cause problems revolves around identity and access management. Sloan uses the example of an employee having separate sign-on credentials for an internal application and another housed in the cloud. If that employee leaves and you remove his access to the internal app, he may still have access to the cloud-based solution. This type of situation can open the gates to troubling security issues and leave your company vulnerable to data loss or theft.

the cloud-based solution

The cloud-based solution

The best way to prevent these issues is to look at your internal systems and determine how they will integrate with the cloud services of a third-party provider. For data and application integration, you have to make sure they can communicate across environments and fully interact with one another. And for identity and access management, you should set up an integrated access management solution that creates one username and password for every application. But you also need to speak to the service provider to make sure that your access system will integrate well with the vendor’s existing management tools.

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