Cloud computing is one of the largest, most dramatic forces changing the IT landscape today. Driven by key economic advantages, as well as factors that re-shape how fast enterprises can address global markets, and develop new services, there are substantial business benefits to the cloud.
The savings can be substantial. According to IDC, the five-year total cost savings from utilizing an online cloud based service, such as Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) over enterprise data-center resources can be over 80%, or over $516,000 USD per application. Yet, for companies managing sensitive corporate and customer data, including credit cards, medical data, or corporate financial data, adopting new cloud capabilities is inhibited by the security challenges around the very nature of cloud architectures. For customers that need to protect sensitive data, moving to the cloud creates substantial new risks and changing landscapes for how to protect private information.
