When it comes to IT, more and more is moving “to the cloud”. But what does this mean?
“The cloud” refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers. The cloud enables users to access the same files and applications from almost any device, because the computing and storage takes place on servers in a data center, instead of locally on the user device. Cloud servers are located in data centers all over the world.
For team-working and collaboration, the benefits are obvious – many people can access the same files and applications simultaneously. For mobile and flexible working, and working-from-home, the benefits are clear too – it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re sitting at your office PC to be able to perform whatever task you need to fulfill.
An additional benefit is that, by using cloud computing, users and companies do not have to manage physical servers themselves or run software applications on their own machines. Which can be an attractive proposition if you want to offload some of the responsibilities and technical challenges associated with these.
But what a lot of people don’t realise is that you don’t offload all responsibility when you use the cloud.
And this is where the idea of shared responsibility comes in. YOU are still responsible for some of the security issues – and particularly for your own data. It’s critical that you understand which security tasks are handled by the cloud provider, and which are handled by you.
The way the responsibilities are shared out varies according to the type of cloud service you are using, but the following responsibilies ALWAYS fall to you, the user:
- Information and data
- Devices (mobile and PCs)
- Accounts and identities
That means that it is up to YOU to secure your data. Do you need to keep backups? Don’t just assume that the cloud provider backs up your data – it is YOUR responsibility, and you don’t want to discover the hard way that no-one else has backups.
If you want to talk to us about how to back up your data in the cloud, give datamills a call on 0114 287 0510, or email us at info@datamills.co.uk