Cloud Computing And Your Business

Cloud computing has arrived on the IT landscape with all the commotion of a Hollywood blockbuster in terms of its media coverage. The hype and chatter that this has caused has arguably not helped its initial growth and development as companies have been at the mercy of a mixed set of messages, some of which have almost approached the point of confusion in various cases.

But the initial dust appears to have settled and now companies of all shapes and sizes (and in all business verticals) have been able to examine the option to buy in their IT power in the form of a cloud ?services-based? commodity.

Without the need to spend on initial equipment outlay, firms are now able to buy in a flexible amount of computing power (in the form of both data storage and applications) as and when they need it. Crucially, these same firms are also now able to scale back the amount of cloud computing power that they subscribe to when demand for IT is cyclically lower.

The economies of scale offered by cloud computing have made it immediately attractive to firms who wish to concentrate on their ?core competency? as a business and buy in external IT resources very much in the form of a traditional utility.

While concerns relating to compliance, governance and security have now been openly discussed, the truth is that security, privacy and system protection in the cloud computing Software-as-a-Service model should be approached no differently to traditional ?terrestrial? security provisioning. Cloud hosting companies will supply data and applications with or without security protection services; it is simply a matter of customer choice. What does matter is that the customer does actively make those choices relating to their cloud security. The means firms should treat their ?cloud server? just as carefully as they would treat (and protect) a server unit sat in a physical office.

First steps for any firm looking to initiate a migration to cloud computing are therefore to undertake audit procedures to examine existing layers and protection. Then (and only then) can the path towards secure cloud computing be embarked upon. So cloud computing?s ?on demand? model for flexibility has fundamentally changed the way businesses will plan and build their IT networks in the future. From small to medium sized businesses right through to multinational corporations, there is value to be had from a degree of cloud computing adoption. It is now time to embrace this new ?paradigm? safely and securely as part of a managed and strategic business plan.

You can view the guide below or download it at the following link?AVG SMB Cloud Computing Guide 2011.

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Source: http://blogs.avg.com/business/cloud-computing-business/

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