Risks in Cloud Computing
The outage of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service last week, reminded me of why I am not a big fan of cloud computing. Basically, it puts you at the mercy of others for maintaining the systems you use, and you have no control over it. In the case of the Azure outage, a Microsoft server security certificate was allowed to expire.
While you may not have the expertise needed to do all the maintenance and updates yourself, at least you have control over it for your in-house systems. You can keep track of such things as expiring security certificates, and make sure that they are properly installed and renewed. For example, if you use a support company, such as CCS Retail Systems, Inc., then when you get your notice that your security certificate is expiring, you put in a support request. You renew the certificate, and CCS will install it for you, and make sure it is working properly.
That is just one example. There are many other issues, like security breaches for example, that can arise from cloud computing. While there are many useful aspects of using a cloud, I feel that your business critical operations are much better served in-house. If you are not comfortable with the resources that you have in-house, to maintain and monitor your systems, then contract with a support company, such as ours, that can provide these services for you. Knowing that your business critical functions are all directly under your control, and not off somewhere in a cloud, should have you resting easier
Dave.