Cloud computing presents many exciting business benefits to enterprises. These benefits are motivating more and more enterprises to migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud. But concerns persist about the security of public clouds. Because of the “public” and third-party nature of the cloud, many enterprises are hesitant to make a full switch from on-premises, private IT to cloud IT. But ISPs and telecom providers can reduce this unease by providing in-country public clouds that are more secure and compliant.

 

The public cloud has myriad benefits

In the world of enterprises and governments, the benefits of cloud computing are well known. Through IaaS/PaaS/SaaS offerings, public cloud infrastructure can help both large and small enterprises. Here are the major benefits of cloud computing for organisations:

1. Hiring cloud infrastructure rather than the outright purchase of hardware and software helps businesses reduce their capital and operating expenditures.
2. A public cloud enables location-agnostic computing, which encourages collaboration between internal teams and external partners. The result is more innovation and richer data analytics.
3. Network administrators can outsource complex disaster recovery plans to cloud vendors by renting storage space from them.
4. Cloud service providers offer best-in-class technology to enterprises of all sizes. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can get enterprise-class technology via the cloud.
5. Cloud vendors can help reduce enterprises’ operating expenses on the maintenance of servers and applications.
6. Public cloud vendors can help enterprises manage their documents better by providing a single storage location and the applications to manipulate them.
7. Enterprises get the flexibility to scale up or down their use of bandwidth and storage based on their needs.
8. Cloud service providers protect their cloud infrastructure physically and digitally by using the best encryption, anti-malware, and antivirus tools. They take these costs off the hands of their customers.
   

But security-related worries persist

Despite the success of cloud computing as a concept and a business, many enterprise IT teams doubt the robustness of the security of cloud servers and infrastructure.

Their primary fears are that

• faulty cloud APIs can leave their data vulnerable,
• storage misconfiguration could lead to a security breach,
• tracking users, permissions, and access could be difficult,
• network latency could slow their transactions,
• compliance with local laws could be an issue,
• forex outflow could raise costs,
• their control over their data could reduce.

These worries are delaying the migration of their storage, processing, and application needs to a public cloud infrastructure. But there are powerful arguments in response to these worries.

The most important reason enterprises would choose the cloud is the same reason that discourages them from doing so: someone else is handling the work instead of you. But the strongest argument favouring the cloud is that while most businesses may have only a couple of people focusing on security, a cloud vendor would have entire teams securing the data and the infrastructure. The key question is: Can your organisation secure your data better than a dedicated cloud provider?

ISPs and telcos to the rescue

Internet Service Providers and telcos have extant business and technical skills, customer and vendor networks, and physical infrastructure that make them perfect candidates for becoming cloud vendors. But on top of that, by offering in-country public cloud service, they can alleviate enterprise IT teams’ security-related worries. Here’s how:

• A local, in-country setup can make enterprises compliant to the local data residency and data protection laws.
• When servers are closer to the client, network latency reduces significantly; transactions happen faster.
• Local providers bill in the local currency. So, no forex shocks and better operating expenditure management.
• With a setup that is more accessible, enterprise clients can get better network visibility, more customised packages, and quick tech support.
• Local cloud vendors can handle both on-premises and cloud applications to manage complex, hybrid IT environments.
• In-country, local vendors present a smaller attack surface than a global cloud vendor, thus reducing chances of hacks.

There are significant benefits of having the enterprise’s IT on the cloud. While IT managers have doubts about cloud security, a cloud vendor will most certainly have a stronger and larger team to protect servers and networks. ISPs and telcos can bring enterprises the whole gamut of cloud benefits with the added advantages of having their infrastructure in-country. Businesses of all sizes, especially SMEs, can benefit immensely by migrating their IT needs to an in-country public cloud run by local telcos and ISPs.