There has been a significant shift in paradigm as more and more organizations are transferring their valuable data and information to cloud. Cloud Server Hosting providers have emerged in the market and now the customer has plenty of options to consider before choosing the right provider.
The jury has been out already but the verdict has been a mixed one with some claiming this to be a landmark breakthrough in terms of computing technology while other arguing that there are far too many risks involved with the same.
Despite security concerns, storing and managing their servers becomes a pain for most organizations. Hence, the need to look for dedicated cloud service providers in the market whom they can outsource their IT infrastructure to, at the cost of a fixed monthly rental appears as a very attractive choice.
The risks that could pose as significant threats for any organization range from downtime to stopping of services altogether. There could be a physical breach of security as well at the data center location or leakage in the storage and the data or information could be lost in case either of this happens. The chances of any disaster happening in a data center is supposed to considerably reduced, tending to null, and hence the measures taken to ensure the same needs to be verified as well by the customer.
However, the reason behind this madrush among various companies to shift to cloud service providers rather than having their own infrastructure is because it allows concentrating on business specific functions rather than spending time managing their IT infrastructure. For example, for an educational institution or a hospital, it is pointless to hire a team to oversee their IT infrastructure and rest as the business functions are not remotely related to the same. However, they have to ensure that the risks are mitigated sufficiently before moving to the cloud.
Customers should thoroughly go through the service level agreement and the customer agreement form before releasing their purchase order. It is equally important that they visit the data center to have a first hand experience of the security measures in place; biometric access, metal detector, power backups, hardware etc.
After having been assured that the infrastructure is good and the technical team is adequately experienced to provide the best support, should one move to the data center.