Hybrid Cloud For Dummies

Plan Your Strategy Based on Governance and Security

While governance and security are extremely important issues within any data center environment, they take on a new sense of urgency in the cloud. One problem confronting organizations is that when third-party services and platforms are used, management has less control. Larger companies are often subject to governmental reporting requirements that force the companies to prove who has accessed what data at particular times. If that company is using a public cloud resource, it needs to make sure that the provider will be able to support the company’s reporting needs. Likewise, many companies are in highly regulated industries, such as financial and healthcare services. These companies need to be able to access the type of reports that will allow them to meet regulations. Some governments require that personal data be stored in the country where individuals live. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of management to conduct due diligence to make sure a company is in compliance.

Security in a hybrid world can be complicated. Management needs to have clear policies about what services can be used for which situations. Both a well-understood security policy and the tools and technology to support the policy as it’s implemented are required.

Governance and security are not static. Companies must make sure that their selected partners ...