A recent study by Gartner found out that almost 50% of government institutions are now adapting to commercial cloud services. Furthermore, the commercial cloud services allow them to effectively reduce CAPEX and OPEX and this is one of the major factors why government entities are welcoming Commercial cloud services with open arms. In the coming years Gartner expects at least twice the current number of government organizations will utilize the power of Public Cloud, with the cost expenditures to increase at least 17.1% annually up to 2021.
Infrastructure architects do not have any qualms with rolling out commercial cloud services in their organizations even if they belong in the local or federal government sector. Moreover, there are a lot of successful stories of how Commercial cloud services improved the current system in their government agencies. However, embracing the Cloud Infrastructure Services should be done with great planning and meticulous implement every step of the way. This is critical to ensure that security risks, network connectivity, system architecture and other key areas are scalable, reliable and resilient. In addition, they should all comply with the industry standards set for commercial cloud services, have a contingency plan and be able. This is vital in every company but more so for government entities. Government agencies are the first line of defense against international threats, and a vulnerable system in a government organization will make a severe below to the countries reputation both financially and reputationally.
Government owned equipment integrated to the Cloud
Cloud Infrastructures are capable of being integrated with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) technology. This is an advantageous innovation for government employees who aim to work remotely anytime and anywhere. Unwontedly, this can also provide a vector for ill-intentioned rogue attackers. It is well known in IT security that the end user is the most vulnerable factor in an IT infrastructure. This is further aggravated with the introduction of cloud access for their company owned devices. Still, all hope is not lost since Commercial cloud services offer a variety of security solutions that address all known security vulnerabilities in a cloud environment. For instance, Amazon Web Services Cloud (AWS) promises a data center and network architecture that is built to meet all the requirements of the most security sensitive organizations and it is a perfect match for government organization.
As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is widely taken up by organizations, several suppliers are pushing the concept of mobile virtualization, which is an added part of the Commercial cloud services, as part of the mobile device management,
If IT organizations can remotely deploy a corporate phone “personality” on an employee’s personal phone, they can deploy separate security rules and protection to guard the data contained in that corporate profile. These rules ensure that end user from transferring the corporate data to other unauthorized devices or sharing it with other unauthorized users. And if the device is lost or stolen the corporate data can be remotely deleted.
Again, the configuration for such working can be managed through the cloud, with rules and data security levels set for each individual employee. The automation that can be used to do this can save organizations substantial amounts of money through lower allocated management time – as well as delivering peace of mind about the security of their corporate data.
Listed below are other effective security protocols that Cloud solutions provider companies have in place:
1. Keeping data secured
Commercial cloud services is an emerging technology that aims to centralize the infrastructure for easy access. With this goal, data is safeguarded to ensure that only those with the roles can access the company data.
2. Adheres to Compliance standards
Commercial cloud services, especially those offered for governments, undergo regular compliance audits to guarantee that the offered cloud service had undergone rigorous testing against all unwanted vectors or projected vulnerabilities.
3. Secured Cloud-based mobile device management (MDM) systems
Administrators who are managing cloud integrated mobile devices understand the risk involved. This risk largely multiple for government entities. This is the primary reasons why the administrators have firsthand access to do remote configuration of the end user devices to ensure that data is securely stored and that there is no weak link in the cloud system that can be exploited by hackers.
4, Changing cloud mobile technologies
A wide variety of innovative IT solutions pave the way for providing managed IT services for government that meets their organizational requirement and exceeds their meticulous expectations. Some of these innovations include cloud mobile technologies that enables mobile devices to better cater the needs of the employees in order further improve and be more effective in their line of work. Also, Cloud mobile strategy can be proposed that makes sure all technologies changes follow the latest cloud infrastructure trends.
Do you agree that Government should start embracing Commercial cloud services to be more effective? If yes, please like and share this article. Should government devices be used with commercial cloud services? Why or Why not?