Whether or not we give it much explicit thought, we all do at least some due diligence every time we buy something.
When it comes to Cloud services , due diligence ought to be done explicitly and with forethought — because getting out from under a bad Cloud choice can be onerous. It’s worth your while to choose well in the first place.
Not all IT activities are right for Cloud computing . What’s more, you may not have the basic elements you need (such as a sufficiently robust network environment) for Cloud computing. And the last thing you need is to learn those uncomfortable truths after you’ve committed to a Cloud project.
This is why conducting a Cloud feasibility assessment is so important. And unless you have Cloud computing expertise on staff, don’t try to do it alone.
Regardless of their cause(s), your ability to minimize business disruptions depends on planning that’s based on a granular understanding of the risks posed to your business processes.
This planning begins with understanding who your key stakeholders are, how your organization conducts business, and what sorts of disruptions are likeliest at your locations (note that recent studies indicate power failures, hardware failures, and network failures account for more than 80% of IT-related disruptions).
Last year, disasters in the United States caused more than $60 billion in damage . And the future promises plenty more of the same, says a recent report from Swiss reinsurer Munich Re — especially in North America, where weather-related loss events have quintupled in the last 30 years.
Now add in concerns about inadequate backup of the data on employees’ smartphones and tablets, wayward virtual machines, cyberattacks and other security incidents …
The challenge: Protect your essential business resources
It all makes now a good time to take another look at your company’s business continuity/disaster recovery plan, which ought to be reviewed and updated at least annually to keep your risk assessment current.
I’ve posted before about Cloud computing best practices , and I’m doing it again now (and for the next several posts) for a couple of reasons:
Cloud computing continues to (quickly) evolve, and while some Cloud best practices stay more or less constant, others must be adapted to keep pace,
Cloud success depends on adhering to best practices — so there’s no such thing as talking too much about them or the order in which they should be applied.
I heard a story recently about the theft of servers from a data room.
The company had locks on all outside doors, but had neglected to install a lock on the server room door.
The thieves would probably have broken that lock, too. Yet the story reminds me how often data rooms get overlooked. The chief reason? Budget … more specifically, lack of budget.
