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make the investment to protect their data.”
Gavin Davis
One approach is getting businesses to understand that not every process is a number one priority in terms of business continuity, said Bunker: “If it took several days for HR to sort out paying salaries that might not be a huge problem. But not being able to access customer orders could be far more serious. Business-critical data should be available on an instant recovery basis, while lower priority data could be backed up on tape, which is a relatively cheaper option, but takes longer to access.”
Does migration to cloud and cloud services change your views on what you need to do to protect and recover data?
Chris Tate
Panelists agreed that not all cloud services provide adequate security and back-up. And businesses should be concerned if they are unclear what data ends up in the cloud, especially if it contains customer information.
Riley: “Don’t assume if it’s in the cloud it is being backed up – that’s not necessarily so. The definition of a cloud service is difficult to pin down. It could be someone with a server in a shed in their back garden. The definition needs to be better defined so companies know what they are buying.”
Peter Laurie
Bunker: “You can have ‘shadow’ IT running in the cloud that your IT department doesn’t know about, for example, sharing information via services like Dropbox. The challenge for companies is knowing where their data is, otherwise they can’t protect it. The IT department needs to be able to certify and audit cloud services to ensure they provide the same, or better, security as their in- house data storage.”
It’s also about understanding control and the geographic location of the cloud host,” added Richmond- Coggan. “Different countries have different regulatory regimes, so global businesses should be wary about putting data with cloud providers where security is less strong.”
Tate: “The popular entry-level cloud services make it very clear in their terms and conditions that they are not responsible for backing up your
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data. You should always keep a copy of your data ‘off cloud’. I don’t think that is fully understood, especially by smaller businesses.”
The cost of cloud can put companies off, but it shouldn’t said Bunker. “Reading the small print can scare people, particularly the potential cost of cloud services. Going to the cloud with high security and high availability that is as good as what you have in-house isn’t necessarily going to be cheaper, but could be the better option. The cloud is a bit of a bandwagon that companies are jumping on, and you should ask questions about the provider before making a choice.”
Improving understanding of the cloud is the way forward noted Melton: “That brings us back round to training. In the past, we always relied on our IT team to do the right thing. Things have changed dramatically, with everyone using technology. So we all need to understand the terminology.”
Avoiding getting too technical was important added Bunker: “Trying to explain the cloud to some executives can be a hiding to nothing. It’s better to talk to businesses about risk and consequences – the practical impacts – and avoid technical terms.”
The discussion on the benefits of the cloud also covered control and how long you store data. Blumenthal said: “Businesses need to understand that if they move to a cloud they could lose control of their services. If you run your email, you know how to sort it. But if it is in the cloud and it goes down, you won’t necessarily know why, or when it will be back up.”
Davis: “Bear in mind that some concerns about cloud are coming from internal IT people who might be more concerned about their jobs. It’s natural that there could be some resistance to the cloud.”
Bunker: “When you no longer need the data, for example, after a marketing campaign has finished, you need to know what happens to the data and how you can retrieve and/or delete it from the cloud. There’s confusion around cloud security – it’s a grey area for businesses.”
If you breach GDPR rules, what should you do?
The issue will be critically important after GDPR comes into force on
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – MAY/JUNE 2018
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