Know how: Tips for cloud-based businesses
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By Jorge Sagastume
EscrowTech International Inc
Cloud computing has fast become the norm. It’s now the preferred method for many businesses offering either infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or software-as-a-service (SaaS), due to the obvious advantages.Here are five things to keep in mind:
1. Cloud can fail
Where there are clouds, there is also the possibility of storms, and the frequency of these storms (and, indeed, the impact they could have) is rapidly rising as more and more businesses become heavily reliant upon cloud computing. Failure can and does happen.
2. The end user has to take the responsibility
While a cloud failure may be the result of the actions – or indeed the inactions – of the cloud provider, as an end user you have a responsibility to protect your customers. If you host your software in the cloud, remember that there are options available to help you plan for failure.
3. Software escrow provides business continuity
Software escrow is an agreement in which your source code and/or your production environment is stored with an independent, neutral third party, and can be released to your customers upon the occurrence of a pre-arranged event.
4. Use more than one cloud service
While there are many different ways to plan for failure, many cloud-based businesses are choosing to adopt a multi-cloud approach. In fact, around 80 percent of cloud-based businesses use more than one cloud service; 4.8 different services, on average.
5. Address ongoing risk
A highly worrisome concern in the world of cloud storage is that the risks of failure don’t simply come and go. This means that, for cloud-based businesses, there is no such thing as getting up in the morning and enjoying the guarantee that, today, everything will be OK, and everything will run smoothly.
Jorge Sagastume is a vice president at EscrowTech International Inc. with 12 years of experience protecting IP and earning the trust of the greatest companies in the world. Jorge has been invited to speak on IP issues by foreign governments and international agencies.
