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Posted on September 14th, 2012 in Cloud Computing by Simply Security | 2 Comments | Tags: cloud computing

As technology evolves to allow features such as mobile banking, organizations must work toward balancing convenience and security.

Emerging trends create a unique challenge for organizations in that it can be difficult to quickly identify best practices when implementing solutions. The significant amount of hype that surrounds some of these new trends can complicate issues further by creating unrealistic goals regarding the capabilities of new technology, which is why it's important to step back and look at which innovations are actually providing significant value to businesses. A recent InformationWeek Reports survey provided some guidance by identifying major trends within cloud computing and virtualization. Some of the results include:

• 73 percent of survey organizations said data center demands have increased compared with last year
• 67 percent of IT budgets go toward maintenance
• 33 percent of IT budgets are spent innovation
• 50 percent of organizations plan to virtualize at least half of their servers by 2013
• 57 percent said cost savings is the most important measurement of success for server virtualization

These statistics highlight an area in which businesses can improve how they utilize the cloud: maintenance. By developing a strategic plan for combining solutions, IT budgets can shift away from maintenance and cloud security tasks and focus more on innovation. The increasing complexity of the cloud data center has made striking a balance between deploying new technology and ensuring the functionality of existing solutions much more difficult. According to Andrew Conry-Murray, editor for InformationWeek Reports, data centers must balance both efficiency and comprehensive support for the applications businesses use.

Mobile adds to the complexity of the cloud
While cloud computing in general has been around for a while, advances in mobile technology have expanded the scope of the cloud. For instance, mobile banking has become a rising concern among financial institutions that must follow strict compliance and security guidelines. Smaller organizations in particular, as Bank Info Security columnist Tracy Kitten pointed out, may struggle with navigating the web of regulatory requirements while implementing new technology.

"But smaller banking institutions – many of which are struggling to conform with the authentication guidance – would greatly benefit from some security and conformance direction on mobile banking and cloud computing from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council," Kitten wrote. "Mobile and cloud are new frontiers for many of these organizations. So they need all the help they can get to adequately address emerging security issues."

Compliance guidelines can provide these institutions with some guidance, but should be considered a baseline for security. In order to fully leverage these solutions, Kitten said that smaller banks could benefit from extra help with regard to implementing security in their unique operational environments.

Cloud Computing News from SimplySecurity.com by Trend Micro