I recently attended a panelist dinner organized by NaviSite and CISCO. That was a great networking opportunity, as I got a chance to chat with many CIOs from companies ranging from 10’s of millions to billions of dollars of annual revenue.
I was really interested in discussing the theme of cloud security, and I noticed that most of them believed that information in the cloud appeared to be more secure than in a physical environment. This is an opinion that I subscribe to.
Enterprise cloud providers like NaviSite offer managed services that include monitoring and security. Enterprise cloud platforms like the Cisco UCS are also architected to be not only scalable and reliable but very secure. They have professionals who configure the cloud environment, including security options, according to your needs. In a physical environment you need experts to set and manage the security, which might cost more and take longer to set up.
In a cloud environment, the security experts on staff managing your services make the cloud a more secure environment. Once you set up the needed tools – firewalls, load balancers, etc., it is easy to clone them while preserving the initial security patterns.
Another advantage of the cloud in terms of security is that it is utility based. If you use a flexible managed solution, then even if you are a small company security should be part of the package.
Basically, the company size does not matter, because the cloud solution should offer and charge you for the exact resources that you use. What you pay for might be an added cost for managing the cloud solution and the fees will depend on the kind of management that you use (with built-in security).
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