Process Flow Diagram and Description

Dozier’s

Surplus

Memo

To: Matthew Thomas

From: Carmese Dozier

CC: Nicole Smith, Chelsea Noel, Valerie Hudson

Dear Greg Blache,

Migrating the company's in-house system to a cloud solution or renting a space with one of a well-established cloud service providers has its pros and cons. The choice between these options depends on the security implication of moving the system over to the cloud or simply renting space on cloud service platforms like Amazon. Moving the in-house system to a private cloud solution can be costly but may prevent severe hurdles in the long run (Modak et al., 2018). Besides aiding the company in keeping its data safe, private cloud solutions help business operations run more efficiently and create synergy across the entire department.

Pros of moving to cloud solutions

Private cloud solutions enhance the company's data security and enable the company to comply with data security laws such as HIPAA. Due to the portability of cloud solutions, the company can easily contain data breaches since the data is handled remotely (Modak et al., 2018). Besides, data won't be stolen when the company's in-house security system is breached.

Migrating to a cloud solution makes it possible to centralize data in one place. The physical system requires the company to hire someone to perform data backups regularly (Modak et al., 2018). However, one of the most incredible benefits of migrating to a cloud solution is the enhanced capability to secure and back up data (Modak et al., 2018). With a cloud solution, the company can schedule automatic backups, and it doesn't have to worry about losing data.

Pros of renting space on platforms such as Google and Amazon

Leasing cloud solutions from vendors such as Google and Amazon has many benefits. AWS services, for instance, have attained the greatest number of industry security compliance standards such as HIPAA, FISMA, and SOC 1/SSAE. Renting cloud solution services offers optimal security and safe data backups (Yevge et al., 2022). The company can schedule regular data backups on leased cloud solutions, enabling it to retrieve data anytime.

Renting a cloud space is cheaper than migrating to a private cloud space solution. Google cloud platform, for instance, charges its clients per minute and offers a subscription period as low as one month (Yevge et al., 2022). Rented cloud space offers active document control; the company can easily access its documents and customers' data.

Limitations of Migrating to private cloud solutions and renting cloud solutions

Migrating to a private cloud solution comes with several limitations. One primary concern for a business migrating to a cloud solution is reliability issues. Private cloud solutions can only be reliable as the company hardware, software, and personnel staff (Trovato et al., 2019). Challenges such as power outages can cause severe problems for the company data and expose it to off-line cyber threats. Rented cloud spaces such as google cloud platforms and AWS have built the cloud solutions to be redundant (Trovato et al., 2019). This implies that these rented cloud spaces deploy redundant cloud data centers and utilize more than one dedicated internet trunk.

There is limited control in rented cloud space. The provider owns, manages, and monitors the entire cloud infrastructure (Trovato et al., 2019). The company often has limited control over leased cloud solutions. While the company can be to manage its applications, vital data, and services operated by leasing firms, it cannot have access to critical administrative tasks like updating firmware or accessing the server shell (Trovato et al., 2019). Rented cloud solutions are highly susceptible to cyber-attacks (Trovato et al., 2019). Although recently, the perpetrators behind attacks on public clouds have been discovered, these platforms continue to be more susceptible to cyber-attacks than a private cloud solution. In 2020, companies lost more than $3.1 billion due to attacks on public cloud solutions (Jartelius, 2020).

Recommendations

After weighing the pros and cons of migrating to cloud space versus renting, I recommend migrating to renting the public cloud. Although renting a cloud solution is cheaper than managing private cloud solutions, rented space poses a significant threat to the company's data safety (Trovato et al., 2019). The cost of migrating to a cloud solution can be compensated by enhanced data security. Losing company-sensitive data to hackers can damage the company's reputation, and the company may face multiple lawsuits.

Other areas of concerns

Although moving to cloud solutions can enhance easier data management and accessibility, this move can come with significant security concerns such as cyber-attacks (Trovato et al., 2019). Recently cyber attacker has intensified attacks on cloud platforms, causing companies to lose money and face multiple lawsuits. It is therefore essential to secure network and cloud solutions this move is executed. Maintaining a strong security password policy, use of encryption, and leveraging cloud Access security brokers are critical for ensuring cloud service solutions (Yevge et al., 2022). The cloud solution provider should offer a platform that gives the company exclusive control of administrative tasks and maintain compliance with security safeguards (Yevge et al., 2022). Since it is recommended that the company migrates to a private cloud, security training on IT and users will be needed to seal loopholes for cyber-attacks.

References

Jartelius, M. (2020). The 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report–a CSO's perspective. Network Security, 2020(7), 9-12.

Modak, A., Chaudhary, S. D., Paygude, P. S., & Ldate, S. R. (2018, April). Techniques to secure data on cloud: Docker swarm or Kubernetes? In 2018 Second International Conference on Inventive Communication and Computational Technologies (ICICCT) (pp. 7-12). IEEE.

Trovato, F., Sharp, A., & Siman, T. (2019). Cloud, co-location, on-premises and hybrid disaster recovery solutions: Pros, cons, and a cost comparison. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 13(2), 120-135.

Yevge, A., Ghag, P., Solanki, C., & Mishra, A. (2022). Review Paper on Cloud Service Provider–AWS, Azure, GCP (No. 7440). EasyChair.

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