New Titanium Cloud Service has shared 680 technical articles for you
Cloud computing is gaining wider adoption over time. It offers many benefits to organizations and individuals of all sizes in terms of scalability, speed, performance, and flexibility.
Migrating to the cloud has become a post-pandemic inevitability and is no longer just a good thing. Whether you are an individual, sole proprietorship or a multinational corporation, cloud computing can simplify your operations and enable you to collaborate in a smooth manner with people from anywhere and at any time.
You might think that something as cool as cloud computing will hardly cause you any difficulties. However, everything has advantages and disadvantages, and so does cloud computing. For organizations or individuals adopting it, it contains certain challenges and risks.
In this article, we'll look at these risks and challenges in cloud computing, and strategies to prevent or minimize them .
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing refers to a technology that provides software and hardware services on the Internet through various remote service networks. Servers store, manage and process data, enabling users to upgrade or expand current infrastructure.
It provides resources such as computing power and data storage on demand without requiring users to manage or maintain the system. Cloud services are provided by many cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc. These providers deploy servers in various locations around the world, called data centers, and use a pay-as-you-go model to deliver services to customers.
In this way, organizations implementing cloud services can save time, effort, and expense while letting the cloud provider manage the systems and applications. They can use the service for as long as they need it, scale their service as needed, and move to another cloud provider when needed.
Cloud computing involves various categories such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and more.
It may seem as though this mountain is taller than that, but it is not. Despite all the advantages of cloud computing, such as scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, there are still certain challenges and risks for organizations to implement cloud computing.
So, here are some of the challenges and risks you might face if you're planning to implement cloud computing. I also cover some strategies to prevent or reduce them.
1. Data security and privacy
The biggest problem with cloud computing is data security and privacy. As organizations adopt cloud computing globally, the risk is greater than ever, with vast amounts of consumer and business data available for hacking.
According to Statista, 64% of respondents to a survey conducted in 2021 said that data loss or breaches were their biggest challenge in cloud computing. Likewise, 62 percent of respondents said data privacy was their second biggest challenge.
The problem with cloud computing is that users cannot see where their data is being processed or stored. If it is not handled properly during cloud management or implementation, risks such as data theft, leakage, disclosure, cracked certificates, hacked APIs, cracked identity verification, and account hijacking may occur.
How to prevent/minimize it: To keep your data safe, find out if your cloud provider has secure authentication, management and access controls in place. Ask them what kind of security they offer, against what factors. If problems arise, do they have the resources and expertise to deal with them? If you have satisfactory answers to these questions, choose a cloud service provider.
2. Compliance risk
Compliance rules are becoming stricter due to increasing cyber-attacks and data privacy concerns. Regulators such as HIPAA, GDPR, and others ensure that organizations comply with applicable state or federal regulations to maintain the data security and privacy of their businesses and customers.
However, compliance is another significant challenge for organizations adopting cloud computing. In the same Statista survey, 44% of respondents cited compliance as the third biggest challenge.
Anyone who uses cloud storage or backup services has run into this problem. When organizations move their data from on-premises to the cloud, they must comply with local laws. For example, in the United States, every healthcare facility must comply with HIPAA.
If they do nothing, they could face penalties, which could damage their reputation and cost them money and customer trust.
How to prevent/reduce this: Choose suppliers that meet applicable standards in your state or country. Many cloud service providers can offer certified compliance, while for others you may need to dig deeper to understand how and with which regulations they comply.
This will ensure that no matter which cloud service you choose, you will comply with the laws applicable in your region. Not only will it save you money during the audit process, but it will also maintain the trust of your clients.
3. Reduced visibility and control
The benefit of cloud computing is that there is no need to manage infrastructure and resources such as servers to keep the system working. While it saves time, expense and effort, users end up with less control and visibility over their software, systems, applications and computing assets.
As a result, organizations find it challenging to verify the effectiveness of security systems due to lack of access to data and security tools on cloud platforms. They also can't implement incident response because they don't have full control over their cloud-based assets. Additionally, organizations do not have complete visibility into their services, data, and users to identify unusual patterns that could lead to attacks.
How to prevent/minimize risk: Before implementing cloud computing, organizations must dig out all the necessary details about what data they have access to, how that data is tracked, and what security and controls the vendor uses to mitigate risk and data breaches.
This will give you an overview of how much visibility and control you can expect from them. In addition, you can perform continuous monitoring and periodic analysis to better understand data, applications, users, and services. For this, you can find many service providers in the market.
4. Cloud Migration
Cloud migration means moving data, services, applications, systems and other information or assets from on-premises (server or desktop) to the cloud. This process enables computing power to take place on cloud infrastructure rather than on-premises equipment.
When an organization wants to embrace the cloud, it may face many challenges in moving all its legacy or legacy systems to the cloud. The whole process can consume a lot of time and resources, and they have little idea how to deal with a professional cloud provider that has been in business for years.
Likewise, when they want to move from one cloud provider to another, they have to start all over again, and they're not sure how the next cloud provider will serve them. The challenges they face include extensive troubleshooting, speed, security, application downtime, complexity, expense, and more. All of these create headaches for organizations and users. Ultimately, it leads to poor user experience, which impacts the organization in every way.
How to prevent/minimize it: Before selecting a cloud service provider, make sure to analyze cloud requirements, security posture and other areas that may be affected when migrating to the cloud. To do this, you can compare different cloud service providers and determine which one can provide you with the best service, ensuring you have the least hassle in running your business.
5. Compatibility issues
When moving workloads from on-premises to the cloud, incompatibilities can arise between cloud computing services and on-premises infrastructure.
This is a huge challenge and may require organizations to make it compatible by any means or by creating new services. Either way, it creates headaches and expense for the organization.
How to prevent/minimize it: List all services, assets, technologies and systems you want to migrate to the cloud before deciding on a cloud provider. Now, ask your cloud service provider how compatible their service is with yours, and if there is a match, you can go to the service provider.
If most services are not compatible, you may move on to the next shortlisted service provider and repeat the same process to find the one that best suits your needs.
6. Improper access control and management
Improper or inappropriate cloud access control and management can pose various risks to organizations. Cybercriminals exploit web applications, steal credentials, perform data breaches, and that sort of thing. If they have a large or distributed workforce, they may face access management issues.
Additionally, organizations can face password fatigue and other issues such as inactive users with long-term contracts, weak certificate protection, weak passwords, multiple administrative accounts, mismanaged passwords, certificates, and keys, and more.
Organizations are vulnerable due to poor access control and management. Their business information and user data may be made public. Ultimately, it leads to reputational damage and unnecessary expenses.
How to prevent/minimize it: Organizations must have proper data control and management of their user accounts to avoid such issues. All of these accounts must be securely connected to a central authority to manage who accesses which systems.
There are many identity and access providers that can help you ensure that only authorized personnel have access to your networks, systems, and applications. You can use third-party or cloud-native tools to analyze all users, groups, and roles. An IAM solution can tell you who has access to information and resources. It also helps you spot suspicious activity and take immediate action to stay safe.
7. Lack of professional knowledge
With the rapid development of cloud technology, more and more services and applications are released to meet different needs. However, organizations also struggle to find skilled professionals to maintain cloud systems. Hiring cloud experts is also costly for SMBs.
The reason is that the cloud is a new concept to many people and it is still not mainstream. Not everyone on your team is familiar with cloud technologies. Therefore, your IT staff must also be trained how to use cloud technology effectively themselves. It again incurs high costs, which can be a burden for organizations with limited budgets. They will have to pay for instructors and invest in recruiting and onboarding cloud professionals.
How to prevent/minimize: Organizations adopting new cloud technologies must ensure that the technology they use is easy to use, implement and deploy, with a less steep learning curve. You must also have in-house training where your senior cloud professionals can train new hires or other employees on cloud technologies.
8. Downtime _
Another irritating thing about the cloud for many organizations can be downtime due to poor internet connections.
If you have a consistent and high-speed internet connection, you can take full advantage of their cloud services. But if you don't, you risk repeated downtime, lag, and errors. It not only frustrates users but also reduces their productivity.
As such, organizations with poor Internet connectivity can face disruption to business operations. They will not be able to access their data at any time. As a result, they can experience many inefficiencies, missed deadlines, and more. All of these create bottlenecks in business operations and lead to lower sales, revenue and margins.
How to prevent/minimize: Organizations adopting cloud technologies must ensure they have consistent and high-quality Internet connections. If not, they have to invest more to get the speed and uptime they need to access their systems and technology whenever they need it. It will increase their productivity and work efficiency, and reduce safety issues that can bog down during downtime.
9. Insecure APIs
Using application programming interface APIs in your cloud infrastructure gives you greater control over your systems and applications. They are built into mobile apps or the web to allow employees and users to access the system.
However, if you're using an insecure external API, it can get you into a lot of trouble when it comes to security. These issues can provide an entry point for attackers to break into your confidential data, manipulate services, and cause other harm.
Insecure APIs lead to broken authentication, security misconfigurations, broken function-level authorization, data exposure, and mismanagement of resources and assets.
How to prevent/minimize it: You must ensure that your developers design APIs with strong access control, encryption, and authentication protocols to avoid this problem. It will provide you with a safe, secure and powerful API that cannot be easily exploited by hackers.
Additionally, you can run penetration tests to find vulnerabilities and fix them before they cause any problems. You can also implement TLS/SSL encryption for data transfers and perform multi-factor authentication using digital identities, biometrics, OTP and other strong identity and access management technologies.
So, above are the risks and challenges you may face while implementing cloud computing. However, as mentioned above, there are ways to prevent or minimize these nuisances.
in conclusion
Cloud computing does offer many benefits, and the future seems brighter. However, it also presents many risks and challenges for organizations. That's why it's critical to understand what can go wrong when you plan to move your workloads to the cloud. It will help you plan and meet these challenges without surprises. Not only can you reduce these hassles, but you can also take the first step with grace.
Original link: https://geekflare.com/challenges-and-risks-in-cloud-computing/
recommended reading
recommended video