By Jon Thordarson, European Technical Support Manager at KeepItSafe
December 18, 2015

KeepItSafe Cloud Backup Expert Tips: Cloud vs. On Premise: Tips on Determining What is the Right Balance

This article will help you quickly determine if IaaS or SaaS is right for you.

Small, medium and enterprises face great difficulties as the initial wave of automation enthusiasm wanes and they find themselves saddled with aging IT infrastructures that requires high cost maintenance. Who will maintain the infrastructure? How do we find the funds to replace components? What about maintenance contracts? What happens if there is an IT disaster? The list of concerns is endless and management is left wondering if they did the right thing in allowing the IT Department to invest in automation.

Yet, automation is not a bad thing. Automation can be achieved without the accompanying hassles of maintenance and budget overruns. The right balance can be achieved by simply leveraging shared infrastructure! Shared infrastructure allows you to lower costs because of economies of scale and frees the enterprise to focus on what they do best. The vendor addresses issues and they are IT infrastructure management experts.

Cloud backup services and cloud computing have revolutionized the way small and medium enterprises handle their IT infrastructure and automation needs. There is no compulsion to hire professionals, set up expensive hardware or maintain them. Existing IT investments can now be hitched to the cloud and existing IT personnels can be trained to handle administrative issues, using user-friendly graphical user interfaces that connect to sophisticated applications and highly available, scalable and secure IT infrastructure that may be located thousands of miles away. Budgets increasingly provision for subscription services rather than Capex and help to improve the bottom-line in the process.

Cloud services provided by online backup and data storage companies strike the right balance between privacy, security and economy. Public clouds are safe and economical. All data transmitted from the customer is encrypted from the start and the vendor stores them in an encrypted format. The encryption/decryption key remains with the customer. The cryptographic models used — 128 bit or 256 bit AES encryption or Blowfish encryption — are nearly impossible to decrypt without the key and considered bank grade or military grade security.

Another layer of security is provided by software. The customer’s Admin is empowered to set up authentication and authorization protocols with adequate rights and permissions for secure access. Data replication, data mirroring and hot sites are set up by the vendor at geographically dispersed locations with failover, to ensure that data is never lost due to man-made or natural disasters and the customer is never at a disadvantage if systems fail.

Enterprises that are nervous about entrusting their data to the public cloud can requisition the services of online backup vendors on a private cloud. Private clouds are exclusively set up for such customers and they provide security similar to virtual private networks (VPN) that a few years back were only available to larger enterprises at huge costs. Private clouds also provide all the facilities of encryption, mirroring and disaster recovery plans that public cloud computing enjoys.

Cloud backup service providers further help their customers strike the right balance by giving them advice; and guiding them through the process of setting up and managing their cloud computing infrastructure. Qualified technical personnel can be reached via telephone or email for information or troubleshooting. Server downtime is often monitored; managed and instantly corrected by professionals, whose job it is to maintain the infrastructure at optimum performance levels.

The advantages are many. The balance is perfect. Small and medium businesses can get on with their business while cloud computing services take charge of the IT infrastructure and provide them with the required levels of automation without accompanying headaches.

About the Author:
Jon Thordarson, KeepItSafe’s European Technical Support Manager, has over 15 years as an industry executive. He is an expert in the world of online backup and data protection. Prior to leading the development of technical infrastructure at KeepItSafe®, Jon co-founded and served as CTO for SecurStore – a leading provider of cloud backup services for enterprise networks. Thousands of businesses trust Jon’s guidance with fluctuating data-compliance requirements through the online publication, “EU Data Protection Regulation”. As a principal contributor, Jon identifies the challenges and opportunities of the EU Data Protection Regulation, while providing expert advice for readers to meet new compliance standards. Visit KeepItSafe’s website here: www.KeepItsafe.com

 

 

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