The biggest worry about cloud services is safety. It is true that these big collections of data do attract more hackers than small in-house data centres. But the question of security is not about the number of hackers, it’s about the level of protection.
Some companies prefer in-house data centres, some opt for the cloud services. But not everyone knows how much the protection levels vary between the two. A good idea is to visualise the in-house data centre as a small old house protected with one or two guards. They walk inside and outside of the building trying to spot outsiders. But those few guards can’t see every corner of the building at all times. However, not much happens on a daily basis and the guards might even be lulled into a sense of false security.
At another property, there lays a nice big mansion with tons of valuables inside. Picture this as the cloud service. Undoubtedly, the outsiders (or hackers) are much more interested in entering this modern property. However, the level of security is a whole different story this time. The mansion has a 24/7 camera surveillance at every corner of the building. The yard is filled with alert, observant and constantly trained guards and the estate is surrounded by a thick and high fence. Now, consider, in which building would you place your valuables or your company data?
Cloud services employ the best experts to work for them. Most companies simply don’t have the capacity to hire the same people to work in-house. Therefore, when a company chooses cloud services, they invest in having more protective and specialised eyes on their property.
The benefit of sharing cloud space with other companies is that each and everyone gets to enjoy a bigger overall budget allocated to security.
In-house data centres might run their updates once or twice a year. Those previously described two guards take turns in checking the systems and updating them. In contrast, the cloud services are constantly monitored and updated immediately when there’s a new version of a tool or a piece of software. The same is often not possible with in-house data centres. As the tech writer Sara Angeles states on Business News Daily, “A data center has limited capacity -- once you build a data center, you will not be able to change the amount of storage and workload it can withstand without purchasing and installing more equipment.”
If you doubt the credibility of a cloud service provider, you can always check their certificates. Standardised certificates allow anyone to see what kind of security measures or processes are conducted in the company. Since data security is their core business, the cloud providers are happy to test their processes. Certificates are a proof of their sound core operations. More information about certificates can be found on a Cloud Security Guide.
There’s always talk about government regulations and supervision as an aspect to be worried about. And it is definitely a very good idea to consider where to locate the company data. Different countries have distinct decrees and regulations and every company should consider possibilities of government intervention. The great benefit in many cloud services is the possibility to choose where to locate the data. If the cloud service is registered in a European Union state, also the data is protected by the European Union legislation.
Company data should be protected against hackers, but another important point of consideration are the physical threats. Fires or environmental catastrophes can cause severe damage to servers and possible loss of data. Both, the in-house and the cloud servers, are at stake. The difference lays in the amount of servers and their location. Every cloud service provider scatters the data in several servers in different locations. This also applies to backups. Therefore, even if one server is down, the data is still available and running on other servers. However, if the data is only saved in one in-house location there is a big risk that fire, flood or some other catastrophe will lead to permanent loss of data.
It is understandable that companies and single consumers might still be worried about the cloud safety. And as previously mentioned, the cloud services are attacked more and more frequently by hackers. However, considering that the benefits are so much higher and the level of protection so much better, companies should definitely choose cloud services as their number one data storage option.
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