MARKET REPORT Cloud
“The location of cloud storage is crucial, and organisations are increasingly recognising the overall value of
moving to the public cloud.” Alastair Pooley, CIO - Snow Software
Cloud Storage Vendors
Businesses have a huge amount of choice when it comes to their cloud storage solutions. In this feature we
will look some of the trends impacting the Channel and how they might take advantage of them as businesses
continually look for the right solutions
Although a technology
which has been prevalent
in many of our business
lives for some time, cloud
storage has been normalised
by the consumer market to the
point where using services like
iCloud, OneDrive, or Dropbox,
has become second nature to
many of us. In the business
world the available solutions
go far beyond a simple way to
store your les online, they
can provide a host of benets
including accessibility, cost
savings, disaster recovery, and
scalability.
Despite the clear benets
there are some very real
challenges to businesses
adopting cloud storage
software. Not least trying
to consolidate the myriad of
services employees are using
without company knowledge.
Alastair Pooley, Chief
Information Ocer at Snow
Software commented “e
location of cloud storage is
crucial, and organisations
are increasingly recognising
the overall value of moving
to the public cloud. Benets
include more agility, the ability
to leverage innovations and
the potential to get ahead of
competitors. As a result of this
new normal, there has been a
surge in companies enabling a
work from home environment.
Despite the real benets,
adopting the public cloud is not
without its challenges. Most
organisations are faced with three
main challenges once they make
the jump: achieving signicant
cost savings, maintaining the
control and security of their data,
and xing the lack of centralised
governance.
e good news is that
organisations can overcome
these challenges if they have
the tools and processes in place
to keep up with the constant
innovations in the public cloud
market – and quickly changing
needs of their business.
e rst step in getting
control of a business’s public
cloud consumption is to
understand precisely which
employees have deployed cloud
instances or applications and
what they commonly use. A
cloud management platform
can help discover cloud
resources and enforce the
tagging strategy necessary to
classify and properly manage
the lifecycle and costs of those
resources. Once IT teams
have a foundation in place,
the management platform can
monitor, measure and optimise
cloud assets without impacting
the pace of development or
impeding innovation.”
DIY Risks
Consumer applications are
prevalent in the workplace and
come with some sizeable risks.
As people rushed home during
the beginning stages of the
pandemic it is likely many free
apps made it into the remote
working strategy. However, as
businesses start to nd their feet
with the right technology many
of these DIY apps could pose a
signicant threat.
Jesse Stockall, Chief Architect
of Cloud Management at
Snow Software commented
Cloud storage is great for:
• Storing files in one centralized location
• Sharing files with friends, relatives and co-workers
• Synchronizing files across devices
Cloud storage is not great for:
• Automatic, comprehensive backup of all computer files
• Continuous monitoring for changes
• Private encryption key for security and privacy
• Uniform policy controls for backup and retention
• Regulatory support, including HIPAA, FERPA and GLBA
compliance
36 | Comms Business Magazine | August 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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