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Cloud Computing: Stormy Skies or Rainbows & Pots of Gold?

Cloud Forecast?Cloud Computing:

What’s the Forecast?

Stormy Skies or Rainbows & Pots of Gold?

Data breach is costly and perilous whether your data is in-house or up in the cloud. Paypal, Visa and Mastercard were all attacked by hacktivists reportedly. Then there was the Amazon interruption last month which was likened to the computing equivalent of an airplane crash, by Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer of Rackspace a specialist in data center services. Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity online services have been down since April 20th and will be down until at least May 31th. Ouch!

As the cloud becomes larger, what kind of rain storm might be possible?

What would it cost your business if all your cloud data was inaccessible for 40 days? What would it cost to create a new security system?  Analysts predict that this hack could cost Sony as much as $1 billion in damages.

What would it cost to cover tangible damages to clients and what is the cost of loss of the goodwill and trust of those clients? Sony is offering a personal apology and a year of free credit monitoring. Will consumers accept a year of credit monitoring going forward, when they should be changing out all credit account data entirely?

What expertise, capital investment and human resources are necessary to protect your mission critical business processes and your client’s data? Should you do it internally, or go to the cloud?

The answer depends on budgets, core competencies, and a good hard look at liability and back up plans. Analysts expect corporate cloud computing to continue its rapid growth. According to International Data Corporation, worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services exceeded $16 billion in 2009 and is forecast to reach $55.5 billion in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27.4%.

Most companies’ core competencies do not extend to data management. Choosing to move to the cloud may free up precious human and capital resources, allowing companies to focus on their business. Reallocating some of the data management budget savings to a company’s primary business focus should provide competitive advantage, and create employment both internally and externally within the cloud industry.

EMC Corporation’s 2011 Cloud Dividend report reportedly finds that industries such as distribution, retail and the hotel sector will benefit the most from cloud computing, with more than $320.5 billion in earnings and 354,790 jobs generated. The Banking, Financial Services and Insurance benefits are estimated as $253 billion, with government, education and health care some distance away with $155 billion. The public sector is said to be the biggest winner in terms of job creation, with 801,000 positions expected to be created over the next five years in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, according to summaries of the report.

Here are some articles to provoke your own cloud computing planning:

Risk Management in Cloud Computing By Sri Prakash, CIO

The Public vs. Private Cloud Debate, Business & Application Requirements Fuel The Decision Between Public & Private Clouds

The Cloud Dividend: Part One
Report for EMC
The economic benefits of cloud computing to business and the wider EMEA economy
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK

The Cloud Dividend: Part Two
The economic benefits of cloud computing to business and the wider EMEA economy
Comparative analysis of the impact on aggregated industry sectors
Report for EMC