The golden rule

In the frantic rush to procure new and exciting cloud-based solutions, many businesses have begun to discount, or completely disregard, IT management's golden rule - always ensure that mission-critical data is secure.

This is a complex by-product of corporate willingness to embrace remotely hosted storage solutions. A burning desire to reduce technical complexity and overheads by deploying off-premises services has now overshadowed the importance of careful planning and risk avoidance within corporate IT infrastructures.

As such, companies are beginning to lose control of sensitive internal information. The fragmentation of data across technical environments and an emerging 'shadow IT' network of user devices or consumer cloud services outside their control is putting the companies at risk and driving up costs.

In a recent study conducted by global research and analysis forum, Freeform Dynamics, and sponsored by Mimecast, 82% of IT managers in UK and US mid-sized organisations admitted that decision-making was being hampered by data availability issues and 77% by data inconsistency.

The root cause is data fragmentation owing to myriad corporate cloud solutions within the business. Put simply, many organisations are facing increasing complexity due to an overload of offerings intended to make IT management simpler.

Without a carefully considered cloud strategy, it is all too easy to fall into the same trap. At present, there is a distinct lack of uniformity among popular off-premises storage, communication and application-based services.

By embracing popular hosted solutions, software as a service platforms and remotely orientated messaging offerings, modern businesses are being placed in a risky situation. This behaviour can often lead to the unnecessary duplication of information, data leakage or lost material.

This challenge is further exacerbated by the presence of consumer-grade cloud storage services such as Dropbox and the popularisation of bring your own device policies within business.

In the same study, 81% of IT managers voiced concern that employees are putting sensitive data onto consumer grade cloud storage and services, while 93% admitted they are currently struggling to control corporate data.

Although these services are intended to provide employees with greater freedom and flexibility, they are being unwittingly abused. The disparate nature of many modern cloud-based IT environments often encourages staff to simply remove information when required.

This process is simpler, and indeed more common, than one might immediately believe.

Seek out a consolidated cloud offering that ticks all the boxes.

Imagine the scenario of an IT manager at a medium-sized enterprise. The vast majority of staff are sales orientated, and as a result, expected to be out on the road interacting with current or potential clients.

In order to equip them with the necessary tools to meet their goals, the board recently made the decision to outfit each staff member with a smartphone and laptop. Consequently, the IT manager was tasked with the responsibility of finding and installing a reliable, cloud-based e-mail infrastructure to enable uninterrupted communication.

Simultaneously, the organisation recently made the move to off-premises storage, giving employees the ability to more easily interact with company data while reducing IT overheads.

Unfortunately, this system does not integrate well with the company's cloud e-mail offering, and as a result, several members of the sales team are now using Dropbox to store vital resources for later use. Often, these individuals remove files from the corporate infrastructure entirely.

Behaviour of this nature significantly increases the likelihood of data leakage or a security breach. When coupled with internal data fragmentation and lack of control over cloud services, it is easy to understand the apprehensions that IT managers are expressing in this study.

The solution is quite simple. Seek out a consolidated cloud offering that ticks all the boxes. Popular off-premises service providers are beginning to move away from disparate solutions toward packages that focus on high data availability and reduced risk.

By focusing on a uniformed approach to cloud services, IT managers can avoid the challenges associated with data fragmentation. Avoid running with the pack - rather stop to consider a singular approach and then take action.