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Ahead in the cloud

Editorial Type: Strategy     Date: 01-2016    Views: 2497   





Cloud storage and how to manage it effectively is a key challenge for many businesses, explains Jack Bedell-Pearce, Managing Director, 4D

Cloud is growing at a faster rate than ever before. The proportion of worldwide cloud-related spend was predicted to reach US$3.8 trillion in 2015, and I can't think of many organisations that haven't already migrated some of their IT requirements to the cloud or at the very least started to seriously consider it. We know the reasons behind this surge too: big data and the rapid adoption of multiple mobile devices. But with this faster, always-on approach to business, companies face one major challenge - what to do with cloud storage and how to manage it effectively.

WHO AND WHAT IS GOING IN THE CLOUD?
The kind of storage organisations opt for is very much dependent upon the nature of the business and the market in which they operate their specific needs and regulatory requirements. For instance, Barry Runyon, a research VP for Gartner, who focuses on the healthcare sector, recently predicted that "…a significant percentage of the healthcare providers' workload will move to the cloud in the next 5-10 years." This is driven by several factors including user demand, supplying remote access to staff and patients and reduced budgets.

Like any other business, healthcare staff use cloud services for everyday activities such as email, enterprise content management and mobile device management. But it is the other critical data such as medical image archiving, medical record systems, secure texting, clinical collaboration, transcription services, legacy decommissioning, and DR archives which require compliance with the strictest storage legislation and therefore present a challenge.

Legislation such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) - which requires compulsory storage of records for decades, privacy and data confidentiality, secure data disposal and storage of digital healthcare records - are a must in healthcare the world over. The Data Protection Act in the UK regulates, among other information, personal healthcare records, requiring mandatory disposal of electronic records after the retention period, accuracy of information, logging any changes and strict confidentiality. Cloud storage enables a far more responsive health service but it is not without its headaches.

AREAS OF CONCERN
At the other end of the spectrum smaller businesses are less affected by regulation but battle with their own fears as highlighted by the University of Greenwich's recent findings that 66% of small businesses cite data security as their main concern. Researchers reported that only one in four firms have adopted cloud technology for business systems with even fewer (19%) making use of the cloud for financial accounting and less than a third (31%) using it for customer relationship management.

Our own recent research across almost 200 IT buyers highlighted that the most common barriers to buying cloud services are:

• Concerns around security (54%)
• Concerns about losing control of their systems, data and infrastructure (54%)
• Concerns that they have already invested too much in their current storage network (42%).

In addition to regulatory and data security concerns, businesses can also be affected by a flood or fire with some online studies suggesting that businesses without a well-structured recovery plan are forced to close within 12 months of an incident when data has been lost.

With more and more businesses embracing the cloud, there is an ever-increasing amount of data sitting off-premise that needs to be continually backed up and readily available. But the risks may be far less than those which threaten data sitting in an on-site server room with poorer measures to protect against fire, theft and flooding. With each DC home to lots of cloud providers, the availability of cloud storage has never been better - whether the business in question is a small accountancy firm, a large online retailer or a healthcare authority.



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