Cloud Computing and Moving Data
by Gerald Trites

There continues to be progress in the Cloud Computing arena, with a new application recently out, called Cloudkick, which enables the movement of data between Cloud applications run by different vendors, such as Amazon and Google. This will address one of the big concerns that many companies have, that is having their data tied up with one company. This means there can be a stronger element of competition in the Cloud, which is presently dominated by Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

The other side of the coin, however, is that the easy movement of data may complicate the control issues that have dominated IT management with regard to the movement of data across organizations, between applications and between companies. Also, data has moved on different platforms, notably small mobile devices, amaking it very difficult to avoid occasional data loss and the resultant privacy concerns. This movement of data has also given rise to the issues of data level security and data level assurance.

It's nice to be able to move data around, for sure, but IT security administrators have to be cognizaant of the risks involved, and address them appropriately.