There are several considerations to be made when using cloud services and data centres, from the cost of maintaining the centre to the security and reliability of the data. Data centres and cloud providers need to understand these factors to comply with industry requirements. Read on to learn more about your obligations. Let’s look at some of them:
Cost of running a data centre
The cost of running a data centre varies wildly. The total fixed cost of a large data centre is in the neighbourhood of $10 million to $25 million a year. The bulk of the costs go toward supporting infrastructure and ongoing application maintenance. The remaining costs come from heating and cooling equipment in computer rooms, property taxes, and labour costs. The most expensive data centres are Tier 4 and Tier 5 and require substantial upfront capital outlays.
Infrastructure requirements
Data centres provide real-time visibility and reporting capabilities that are essential for compliance, SLAs, billing, chargebacks, and customer service. A cloud infrastructure must be resilient to failure, even in the event of an outage or other outage. Furthermore, a cloud provider must support any technology regardless of location. This ensures consistency and scalability throughout the deployment process. However, data centres should be vendor-neutral to ensure maximum flexibility.
Security concerns
While there are security concerns for data centres and cloud providers, these issues aren’t new. Security breaches in the cloud have a long history, and they’ve also resulted in high-profile data breaches, including a recent incident involving Capital One. In the case of Capital One, an attacker exploited a misconfiguration by the bank’s customers to steal social security numbers. Fortunately, there are measures in place to avoid this type of data breach in the future.
Reliability
Reliability is a key consideration for data centres and cloud providers. The move to the cloud is expected to increase workloads in these facilities, which increases the likelihood of outages. However, the reliability of cloud services is not as well understood as that of on-premises data centres. According to a ComScore study, 42% of small businesses are concerned about the reliability of the public cloud. In fact, 75% of them found that their service availability improved after migrating to public cloud. This change in perception is due to improved server uptime and better support offered by public cloud providers.
Efficiency
There are several reasons for the increased efficiency of data centres and cloud providers. For example, public cloud facilities are usually located near energy sources, which reduces energy losses during transmission. In some cases, cloud providers can even locate their facilities in colder climates to minimise cooling requirements. On the other hand, companies with on-premises servers don’t have as much control over the location and are likely to have higher energy costs per output.
Security
When considering the security of cloud providers and data centres, one of the key things to consider is physical security. Professional data centres employ a high level of physical security and access controls, including gated entrances and secured authentication points. Likewise, the physical security of cloud providers is essential for maintaining a data centre’s uptime, as a power supply or fuel source interruption can cause extensive data loss. To keep data safe, cloud providers need to be well-maintained, with proper backup and fuel supply.
Privacy
There is a huge need to protect data in the cloud. Privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. require companies to comply with these laws. They need to know where they store data and what applications are accessed and used, and they must be able to show auditors that they meet these standards.
