Others have already offered great input-things like vetting the cloud vendor to ensure security is what it needs to be (both for internal needs and regulatory purposes), and planning/maintaining an exit strategy from the start.
Our most mission-critical data as a school district is our finance/HR data and our student records. We *already* store this data in the cloud; it's housed at a data center at Florida State University and we access it across the Internet. Their data center has huge generators, redundant high-speed connections, off-site backups and peering agreements in New York, and is built to withstand a category 5 hurricane. There's no way we could do all of that ourselves. Only through taking advantage of economies of scale-which is one of the two huge benefits of cloud computing (in addition to availability from any machine/location that has Internet connectivity)-can we accomplish this. As for Tim's concern that cloud computing makes organizations one wrong backhoe dig from shutting down... Well, we're already in that position, even with the data we host ourselves. Our schools tie back to our network operations center via fiber, and if their fiber gets cut they lose access to that data. So for us, moving data to the cloud doesn't present much additional risk in that regard. Our Internet connectivity is reliable enough that we're comfortable using the cloud on an increasing basis. John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us From: Alex Eckelberry [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 10:05 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Cloud computing... your opinions We're working on cloud computing initiatives (like everyone), and I'm also doing a fair amount of research into the area. (Of course, the whole idea of "cloud computing" is itself fairly silly, when it's just a renaming of the concept of a network-connected computer. But whatever, it's the hot topic.) There are areas where it makes sense, such as email filtering. Web filtering, well maybe not so much. CRM (like SalesForce.com), makes sense. I'm curious -- what are your thoughts on cloud computing? What might be the security questions you would ask your cloud computing vendors? What irks you about it? What is good about it? Alex Alex Eckelberry, CEO Sunbelt Software 33 N. Garden Avenue, Clearwater, FL 33755 p: 727-562-0101 x220 e: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> MSN: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> w: www.sunbeltsoftware.com<http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com> b: www.sunbeltblog.com<http://www.sunbeltblog.com> NOTICE: Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from this entity are public records that will be disclosed to the public and the media upon request. E-mail communications may be subject to public disclosure. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
