Cloud Computing - Please get on board

In contrast to on-premise with rental or purchased software, cloud computing offers more flexible forms of licensing (e.g., via data volume, number of accesses) for SaaS (software as a service).

This provides a cost advantage right from the start, in contrast to the purchase of property, according to the credo "operating costs instead of investment costs".

But: Lower start-up investments always mean a lower return on investment (ROI) (over time). Additional cost reductions result from the flexible scaling of the required resources and from the savings in labor costs for experts responsible for software and hardware updates.

Further advantages lie in sizing: For high transaction volumes, the provider is responsible for computing power and storage availability. Also worth highlighting is the multi-tenancy architecture, in which different SaaS customers use one system and one infrastructure (multi-tenancy).

Furthermore, the systems are always up-to-date, as release updates are usually the responsibility of the service provider.

The skepticism about cloud computing stems from the current attacks such as DDos from the cloud, Man-In-The-Cloud, etc.. This is where computing power is hijacked. Every third attack originates from the cloud.

However, these attacks only affect availability in cloud computing. At the same time, access can be sufficiently protected. Cloud servers have been using cryptography for years, and the transmission is secured accordingly.

There are numerous challenges to be overcome for integration of cloud services, because cloud-based services cannot be introduced without risk.

These issues should be considered: With more complex networking, resilience is often underestimated. Special attention must also be paid to compliance with data protection regulations, more complex incident, change and emergency management, protection of business-critical data and data transmission, backup and recovery measures and granular definition of service level agreements (SLA).

The provision in the event of separation from the provider in the event of termination or insolvency should not be forgotten. This gives rise to the following questions, which you should clarify with your cloud provider beforehand:

• Who has access to the data?
• Are subcontractors approved?
• What influence do security officers of the cloud provider have?
• Who does what backups and who does disaster recovery?
• Regulation of data protection in case of voluntary or involuntary termination of service?
• How does who get access to the data?
• Can the service provider view passwords?
• How are cloud data centers secured against intruders?
• What is logged?
• Are security breaches and intrusion attempts reported?
• Can it be subsequently checked by whom data has been changed? Is transmission exclusively encrypted (SSL, certificates)?
• Session key management and multi-tenant data access control?
• Can the location of the servers be traced and is an adequate level of protection guaranteed when sensitive data is stored outside the borders of the European Economic Area?
• Can sensitive data be read, copied, modified without authorization?

These challenges explain why businesses are reluctant to incorporate the cloud strategy into their IT structure, especially since access is only possible via interfaces and protocols.

Conclusion

The trend shift to Industry 4.0 as a result of offshoring and globalization can no longer be stopped. The shift from on-premise to cloud computing is a key aspect, with CRM systems leading the way.

If you give sufficient priority to data protection, you can look forward to a variety of advantages with cloud computing. However, one must be aware that, in deviation from the guaranteed availability, there may be additional downtime due to access problems.