THE CLOUD | LABORATORY INFORMATICS GUIDE 2015
the cloud, because our customers can decide what they want on the cloud, and what they want available. I really don’t see it as being very different from some of the data security challenges that have been tackled by some of the other industries that have adopted the cloud.’ Denny-Gouldson said: ‘Every time I talk about this subject, it’s all about a “when” and not an “if”. More and more customers are under cost pressures to look at their infrastructure, and they see they can no longer afford to run all of this inside their organisations: “I am having my budget cut by 25 or even 30 per cent, how am I going to deliver the same level of support and functionality to the business?” The scientists demand that; they are not going to accept a lower level of service; they want exactly the same service, if not better.’ Denny-Gouldson concluded: ‘As a risk, I
don’t see it any differently to someone hacking into your VPN – they are still going to need a password or some kind of login credentials. Sometimes it’s not technology, sometimes its training people and making them aware of the risks.’
Denny-Gouldson added: ‘In terms of SaaS,
we do not have an offering at this immediate moment but it is part of our roadmap for next year to start delivering our infrastructure and our applications as a true SaaS offering – where you turn up, turn it on, and all it needs are some very quick start-up for the environment.’ Denny-Gouldson commented that the
reason IDBS had been cautious moving ahead was to pay special attention to the security concerns of its users. He said: ‘It’s really a case of trying to figure out how R&D organisations can get around what is often fear, uncertainty and doubt when it comes to SaaS cloud or hosted services.’
ARE WE TOO SCARED? Apprehension in regards to the adoption of new technology is not a new phenomenon for informatics vendors. The rise in the use of mobile devices poses many of the same risks as cloud deployments, as it is essentially just login credentials that prevent someone from accessing private data. There are things that can be done to improve
The reduced infrastructure costs
associated with cloud informatics solutions allow providers to reach new markets
security. For example, users want to maintain visibility of who is accessing what information and who is trying to access the service. Another concern is whether data segregation techniques will be sufficient to protect sensitive information, but standards are already in place to deal with these kinds of issues. In Madden’s view, although security is a
primary concern, a lot of sensitive information is already stored in the cloud and this trend shows no sign of diminishing. In addition, the flexibility the cloud provides allows for the solution to be customised to the needs of any particular client. Madden said: ‘Depending on the customer,
and depending on what they need to do, will determine what they want to put in the cloud and how public or private that cloud will need to be. And that is part of the beauty of
THE CLOUD HAS ITS BENEFITS Cloud computing has many benefits, from collaboration and scalability to elastic computing. Elastic computing is seen as a key focus because it can be pursued to alleviate the pressures of smaller companies or specific labs, to get work done without the need for a large scale infrastructure to back them all year round. Uzzo said: ‘A key aspect of the platform is
the way in which we are leveraging the cloud and the elasticity that it provides to customers. Our customer’s data and applications are distributed across physical data centres providing a level of high availability and redundancy.’ By themselves, he said: ‘Many of our customers simply could not afford that level of performance and availability.’ Madden observed that the reduced
infrastructure costs associated with cloud informatics solutions actually allow providers to reach new markets that just could not afford these services before. Madden said: ‘I think it allows you to
address certain market segments more effectively. A large enterprise system has a certain cost associated with the infrastructure and support that a lot of smaller organisations just would not be able to afford. You can reach them with a more lightweight solution deployed in the cloud, through a pay-as-you-go subscription model.’ Another aspect Denny-Gouldson
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