We discuss the following topics in this blog:

1. Benefits of moving to the cloud
2. How organizations can troubleshoot potential issues
3. Providing Broad Permissions & Misconfigured Storage

In addition to these topics, we shall also be answering the following FAQs:

1. What is WiFi?
2. What is Cloud Computing?

Overview

Cloud migrations are massive undertakings for almost any organization or business. That said, this certainly doesn’t stop such organizations from being enchanted by the sheer advantages that a cloud environment can wholly provide. While some organizations simply desire the hands-off scalability that can single-handedly manage a viral post from their social media team without actually having to pay for it all the time, other businesses may want to leverage the high-availability uptime that the cloud offers without actually having to pay round-the-clock staffing.

This means, transferring risk to a cloud provider can also save organizations a lot of money – a cost-effective move! Whether through in-built updates, safe and secure data management, or recovery plans against disasters, cloud migration can be an excellent option for minimizing risk.

Even though we are all quite accustomed to storing all data on our cloud handles there are certain typical mistakes that still remain. There are too many organizations that expose themselves to uncountable risks pertaining to the business and its reputation simply because they have failed to properly relocate or sometimes even adopt fresh, new services and strategies. It’s about time organizations learn how to avoid making such mistakes in the future.

Now, the question is, how can organizations troubleshoot potential issues before they pile up to become a consequential problem?

Here’s what you need to know!

Problem #1: ‘My connectivity keeps crashing! What do I do to fix it?’

We live in an extremely well-connected world. Let’s assume X is an organization that opts for not-so-fast connectivity. This will degrade the end user’s experience and deteriorate the quality that your business has to offer.  

In a world where user experience is given the greatest priority, nothing impedes computing experience more than a static or sluggish experience, which is especially true when it comes to cloud computing. So, when an organization is transitioning, stepping into the world of ‘cloud’, it is necessary to have a more defined and qualitative knowledge about the amount, quality, the bandwidth required, and implications of data flow.

But alas, too many organizations fail when it comes to this mostly because they do not consider the network implications of data leaving the cloud.  

When data finally leaves the cloud provider, it allows users to lift and shift their data into various locations for various applications. Moreover, these also constitute a major portion of a business’ cloud expenses because guess what, the data is never stagnant. It is always on the move!

Data egress is typically charged at 7p per gigabyte. For instance, when you move approximately 25 terabytes from the cloud and transfer it on-premise data center or some other cloud provider, it can cost about £180,000 in egress fees via the virtual private network or a VPN or even a public internet for that matter. With that being said, quite a few instances may give way to the creation of data-egress costs, and some of these may even surprise you to some extent. To name one, it may include restoring backups in the cloud to an on-premises location.

Businesses can not afford to have inflexible network connectivity. It is imperative for network connectivity to be flexible. That way, organizations can conveniently improve their proactiveness and also respond (and calibrate) quickly to such dynamic and evolving business conditions. Too many IT leaders have struggled over the same issue the last year. It is only true that when it comes to cloud adopters of modern times, they procure networking as though they’re consuming cloud computing resources. The higher speed that can be ramped up or down based on demand is feasible when working with a supplier who can deliver greater performance. This easily allows a real-time response to workload fluctuations as well as shifting demands in the business. This also enhances security, helps avoid bill shock. It also doesn’t need a long-term contractual lock-in. When the cloud has made it possible for us to respond and thereby adjust to the sources of such changes, we should ensure that our network is doing the same.

Problem #2: ‘I have adopted a one-size-fits-all strategy. Why isn’t this working out for me?’

It is important to prepare for individual applications. However, not doing so is perhaps one of the biggest blunders any organization can make. More often than not, organizations perceive the cloud from the point of view of a server instead of viewing it from a perspective of all its uses and applications. Even so, the needs, goals, and objectives of each and every organization may differ from one business to another, which makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to stick to a cloud strategy that may seemingly go with the amount of workload in the organization.   

Before you decide on cloud-hosting, it is crucial for businesses to assess the features and attributes of their workloads primarily. This often involves ensuring that you understand everything regarding how they perform, security, application, and integration along with data volume requirements and needs. From a holistic point of view, this assessment can be made in terms of workload-placement decisions.

Problem #3: ‘I have brought in the cloud for my business but haven’t really updated security landscapes. Is that a problem?’

Of course, it is. When it comes to adopting the cloud, cloud businesses often tend to execute new technologies without properly understanding them. This is exactly what makes them prone to a diverse range of risks.

Listed below are some of the most typical mistakes that you can make with cloud security along with their solutions:

Providing Overly Broad Permissions? STOP Already!

Make it a point to have a grip over permissions by simply adopting an approach of access that is least privileged. By doing so, the access remains limited to only those people who actually need it to get their jobs done. However, in case broader permissions are required, it is important that we ensure that all such accounts are temporarily locked down with multi-factor authentication.

Misconfigured Storage? It Shouldn’t be a Problem Anymore

In order to restrict the negative consequences of misconfigured storage, you can simply appoint encryption everywhere you can, which also includes storage encryption. So, in case this encrypted data is ever stolen by fraudsters or hackers, they will have quite a hard time (read: almost impossible) reading or making sense of the data.

Inadequate Protection of Application

Once upon a time, firewalls were considered to be enough when it comes to protection. However, it’s not the same anymore. In fact, when it comes to traditional firewalls, they can easily be locked down so as to let them allow web traffic through specific ports. Most of the time, that’s all that a hacker requires to hack your network. Therefore, in order to efficiently safeguard businesses, it is important to implement efficacious patch management along with WAFs, that is, web application firewalls.

Compliance Issues?

When you’re transitioning to the cloud, it becomes extremely critical to identify all the countries where the data must be processed along with the impression they will generate. Followed by this, a risk-centric approach is required to fall in with them. In order to handle such a situation, you can enable compliance and application-level monitoring and then assign an owner. This is how you can conveniently ensure the collection of audit evidence while also ensuring that misconfigurations are duly found and spotted, thus, avoiding further non-compliance.   

What’s the Future of Businesses? It’s all in the Cloud!

The pandemic has absolutely transformed the way organizations operate. In fact, recent studies from TCS indicate that over 51% of organizations have actually spiked up their spending with regards to all the services provided by the cloud over the past year owing to COVID-19 and its aftermath. Even now, too many businesses will be caught up with making some really typical mistakes in case their strategy doesn’t make up for all the required elements before making the final move. When you adopt a readiness approach with the cloud, with proper planning for all the tasks ahead, organizations can conveniently spot problems before they take shape and seep into their systems, while protecting their return on investments because they would no longer have to move data back to on-premises solutions.

FAQs

What is WiFi?

Put simply, WiFi is a technology that uses radio waves to create a wireless network through which devices like mobile phones, computers, printers, etc., connect to the internet. A wireless router is needed to establish a WiFi hotspot that people in its vicinity may use to access internet services. You’re sure to have encountered such a WiFi hotspot in houses, offices, restaurants, etc.

To get a little more technical, WiFi works by enabling a Wireless Local Area Network or WLAN that allows devices connected to it to exchange signals with the internet via a router. The frequencies of these signals are either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bandwidths. These frequencies are much higher than those transmitted to or by radios, mobile phones, and televisions since WiFi signals need to carry significantly higher amounts of data. The networking standards are variants of 802.11, of which there are several (802.11a, 802.11b, 801.11g, etc.).

What is Cloud Computing?

IoT or Internet of Things refers to a network of physical devices (embedded with intelligence and technologies) connected to the internet to share and collect information. The term Internet of Things was first coined by British technology pioneer Kevin Aston in 1999. The rise to IoT has been mainlyImagee to the following reasons: access to low-cost, low-power sensor technology; ubiquitous connectivity, Cloud computing platforms, Machine learning & analytics, and Conversational artificial intelligence (AI).

In a typical IoT environment, data is collected via smart sensors (like GPS, Accelerometer, Camera, temperature sensor, etc.), i.e., it could be as simple as taking temperature data from the surrounding. Next, the data is sent to the cloud. The sensors could be connected to the cloud via Satellite/ WiFi/ Bluetooth/ Cellular/Ethernet. As the data reaches the cloud, it undergoes data processing and analytics. Once the data is aligned to the specific use case, it can be sent to the user device of choice, laptop/computer via email/text/notification, etc. When IoT devices talk to each other, they can use various standards and protocols, for example, WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), etc.

With the potential of converting any physical device into an IoT-powered device and negate the need for human intervention, the technology is set to transform across every possible sector. The major industries that will benefit from IoT will be:

a) Manufacturing (Quality Control, Predictive Maintenance, Smart Packaging, etc.
b) Automotive (Fleet & Driver Management, Real-Time Vehicle Telematics, IoT based Predictive, In-vehicle Infotainment maintenance, etc.)
c) Transporation and Logistics (Inventory tracking and warehousing, Location management systems, Drone-based delivery, etc.)
d) Retail (Automated Checkout, In-store Layout Optimization, Robot Employees, etc.)
e) Finance (Auto Insurance, IoT enabled Smart Payment Contracts, Account Management)
f) Healthcare (Remote patient monitoring, robotic surgeries, Ingestible sensors, etc.)
g) Public Sector ( Infrastructure management, Disaster management, Law enforcement)