Thursday, June 10, 2010

Public vs Private Cloud Computing and Companies

I found these articles insightful regarding the decisions that companies face regarding cloud computing.  It seems that “Private” cloud computing is an option that companies are considering when security, privacy and control cannot be ceded to a “public” cloud. Yet the cost savings and flexibility of outsourcing your infrastructure is very appealing to those that make decisions. 

“An organization with a large internal IT estate may wish to repurpose some of this to create a private infrastructure cloud--a sound way to increase utilization of existing assets and consider the internal economics of providing IT as a service.”Owen Garrett, “Keeping Cloud Costs Grounded”, 2010, <http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/02/internet-software-zeus-technology-cloud-computing-10-garrett.html?partner=email>(accessed June 04, 2010).

“As cloud computing shows its strengths in flexibility and economical operations, corporate computing operations are taking notice--even at companies that are too conservative to place much trust in the cloud services on the Internet. So now we hear a lot of talk about "private clouds," which usually mean server clusters behind the corporate firewall that mimic the operation of the public clouds.”David F. Carr, “What Cloud Computing Means”, <http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/02/microsoft-google-amazon-technology-cloud-computing-10-leaders.html?partner=email>(accessed June 04, 2010).

Can medical organizations go with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and still meet HIPPA compliance?  Will relying on the vendor’s best practices on securing patient data be sufficient to avoid government fines in the event of a breach?  These are questions that have not been answered and unfortunately may not have an answer until the first breach occurs.  I would expand on David F. Carr statement that not only “companies that are too conservative”, but industries that are too conservative like banking, medical will need to be slow to move towards public cloud computing. Any company that deals intimately with user privacy will need to experiment with the private cloud computing option before they ever considering the public aspect of cloud computing.

Posted via email from Orencio's posterous

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