Problems With Cloud Communication – Real or Myth?
What problems with cloud communication should your business be aware of? If you’re trying to run a business in today’s global, fast-paced, technology saturated world, this is a logical question. In this article we will discuss the common issues with cloud communications and how to prevent them.
Problems With Cloud Communication
The benefits of the cloud are extensive. The cloud communications enable rapid deployment, easy provisioning, scaling of IT resources, and moderate cost. Cloud platforms are critical avenues to getting started for many companies, giving them access to many customers at a low-cost. Many business leaders see the cloud as an engine for small business and job creation.
However, despite the increasing growth of the cloud, some companies are still reluctant to aggressively move workloads and applications to the cloud because of real problems and perceived problems with cloud communications. We hope to shed light on these real problems and also the myths, and explain how the cloud can be the building block to your businesses success.
1. Theft of Communications and Data by Hackers
Hackers constantly work to penetrate and steal data from all servers and computers worldwide. Vandalism was briefly the most likely outcome years ago, but today credit card and identity information is the top target of hackers, followed by industrial and commercial confidential information such as processes, product sources, cost data, and other data with commercial or industrial value. This is a serious issue for any network or IT manager.
Although hackers are constantly circling the enterprise, there are many preventative measures you can take to keep this from harming your cloud communications and your data. Despite this, security basics like
- Configuring and testing your servers to resist attacks
- Installing and properly configuring firewalls and security appliances
- Using up-to-date intrusion detection software
- Encrypting sensitive information
- Ensuring that security patches to system software and drivers are applied promptly
- Blocking known attack IP addresses and actively monitoring probes and DOS attacks
Security software at the server level and at the application level can be configured to check login attempts and to automatically register errors and block attacking IP addresses from which attackers or bots are discovered trying to brute force passwords, inject malicious traffic, or register peers with the wrong credentials.
So even though external threats are real and serious, threats to the cloud are no more than any other service delivery environment. While it may be easier to look at the cloud as unsafe and use that as an excuse to hold off, that just isn’t true. The cloud is the future, and it will keep your information safe if the correct measures are taken.
By implementing measures to secure data and security methods, business will no longer doubt the reliability of the cloud. In fact, a study by Microsoft states, “94 % of SMB’s have gained security benefits that they did not have with their former on-premises technology, such as up-to-date systems, up-to-date antivirus and spam email management.”
2. Concerns Over Control of Your Data
Data residency is a main concern, and some countries have regulations that do not allow the exporting of personal data or its storage in another country. Residency is particularly a concern for personal data, such as, identity information, health care information, tax and financial information. Customers have to provide their users with cloud services on multiple continents but satisfy the needs of the location and adhere to their strict policies.
Much of this concern by use of a cloud provider that has a global footprint that offers data accountability. In some cases, a private cloud may be a simple way to handle data governance.
3. Costs for Cloud Communication
Many people associate cloud communication with big business, and therefore assume it is expensive. And indeed, in certain countries and locations the communications infrastructure for wired and wireless Internet access does not support real broadband connectivity. In these cases, there is no good solution.
This is quickly changing, even in areas that still have very slow narrowband wired communications. In many of these areas, LTE wireless is replacing slower DSL and dialup connections.
In most other areas, bandwidth has improved on a widespread basis, so that cloud communications are fully supported. When this is the case, companies typically save money because there is no capital expenditure for expensive PBX equipment and on site software and hardware maintenance cost.
The total cost of ownership is lower with cloud communications in nearly every case where broadband communications are available.
4. Unreliable Cloud Communications
There have been more than a few new stories about outages affecting big cloud providers. Businesses could not access their data or take orders for periods as long as a day in the worst case.
Fortunately, despite the occasional major outage, most cloud providers are offer greater than 99% availability, and really major outages are quite rare.
Businesses protect themselves by two means: diversity in connections, and having a backup strategy in place.
Diversity in connections means that, for a major enterprise, the IT manager would arrange at least two independent circuits to carry the company traffic. In some top-end data centers, these circuits actually enter the data center by different physical routes to ensure that a backhoe cut will not take down both circuits.
A cloud-based backup strategy also ensures that offsite storage mirrors on-premise backups. When offsite connectivity is lost, local volumes remain intact, and synchronization will restore the mirroring as soon as connections are restored.
The best cloud communications providers protect against “broken routes” by providing multiple diverse routes for messaging between your site and any other location. This ensures that customers can call at any time and place an order or get support.
5. Over-Reliance on a Single Cloud Vendor
Many think that using cloud services could lock you into an unhealthy relationship with a single cloud vendor.
Fortunately, the number and diversity of cloud service providers provides a wide-open marketplace of communications and service offerings delivered over the Internet. This includes cloud communications services such as call forwarding, toll free numbers and local numbers, and even cloud-based virtual call center software.
Cloud computing is not one thing. A cloud strategy should be based on aligning business goals with potential benefits. A single cloud vendor makes sense if it makes use of your framework decision.
References for Problems with Cloud Communications
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