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August 3, 2012 By News Staff
Cloud computing gets a lot of hype, so some may not consider the hidden costs associated with a move to the cloud. There are five hidden dangers associated with cloud technology that IT managers should consider, according to a white paper released by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).
The paper, which offers a detailed analysis of potential benefits and costs associated with the technology, suggests not buying into the hype before looking at the hidden costs and making a detailed economic plan first. “Users who have been in IT for a long time know that, no matter what new innovation comes along, the challenges of managing IT (e.g., security, cost, complexity) never go away — they just take on new (and sometimes dangerous) forms,” the paper reads.
The five hidden dangers of cloud computing are:
“Before deciding which cloud model to adopt, the enterprise must baseline the current cost to run the existing infrastructure or single system,” the paper reads. “This step is essential in deciding if cloud computing is suitable for the business and to calculate the economic and strategic return of the investment.”
To read the full white paper, visit the ISACA website.
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http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Dangers-of-Cloud-Computing.html
I think cloud computing is the next big thing in the technology domain, I also feel that these players will have a major role in maintaining security and privacy, of late their are some new tools in the market such as CollateBox http://www.collatebox.com/ which are looking very positive when it comes to secure data sharing. Must wait and check these out.
Two "points" don't really seem like points to me. 1) loss of internal IT knowledge Any move from an obsolete system to a superior system will result in the loss of the old knowledge... and the gain of the new knowledge. So, this is not necessarily a danger. It's only a danger if you made a poor decision somewhere along the way and need to revert to your previous infrastructure -- which indicates you probably didn't have enough knowledge in the first place! 2) lock-in with a specific cloud provider or proprietary service model, which may slow down future adoption of open standards-based services. Again, only if you don't go with a flexible cloud provider like Linode or Amazon. It seems that we are moving away from these "lock-in" arrangements as an industry, as they obviously subjugate the freedom of the consumer (gov agency) to the job security of the provider.