Don’t let the cloud drain your IT budget

This past April, we launched our on-premise file sharing and storage solution, Novell Filr. While we've been talking a lot about the value of on-premise versus the cloud for security purposes - in addition to what the media is reporting- there are other benefits to consider. One of those is costefficiency.

A recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) notes that, because of cloud file-sharing technologies, up to 30 percent of IT's budget is spent without IT's approval. This is because it's so easy for employees to sign up for and download free tools such as Dropbox, without IT even knowing that these apps are being downloaded. Yet, IT is still tasked with managing the security of corporate assets. With on-premise solutions, there is little concern about where corporate data is being stored, as IT is able to manage data with their existing assets and keep everything secure on their internal servers. This means IT can spend less time concerned with chasing corporate data that is stored in public clouds, and more time working on mission-critical IT projects.

Another recent survey of IT professionals found that 74 percent of organizations don't have procedures to track which files are put into cloud storage by users, and 56 percent believe that IT cannot accurately measure employee usage of cloud storage services. While it may be individuals putting sensitive data at risk, it will be the organization paying the price - literally. IT foots the bill for employees using consumer cloud services without proper restrictions.

Start-ups especially cannot afford the extra costs often associated with cloud services. Cade Metz from Wired recently wrote about this topic, noting that, "In some cases, the cloud works. In others, it doesn't." He confronts the cloud hype head-on and even notes one Silicon Valley start-up, MemSQL, which dropped its monthly cloud services bill from $27,000 to $6,000, by investing in physical servers that perform the tasks just as efficiently. For a start-up, those are critical dollars that can be put to better use in areas like product development.

Unlike on-premise solutions, cloud-based products are at greater risk of data breaches and hacks. In fact, researchers recently proved that Dropbox could be hacked by reading Dropbox's code. Dropbox, and many other cloud-based providers, write their code in Python with techniques that are meant to prevent reverse engineering. In this case, the researchers were able to read the code and reverseengineer Dropbox, despite the fact that it was written in Python. This means that Dropbox, along with all cloud solutions written in Python, could be at risk of data breaches.

For companies that work with sensitive information such as those in financial, healthcare and government industries, on-premise solutions are a no-brainer because of the security risks associated with cloud solutions. Even outside of those industries, however, businesses need to consider the risk to their data and to their budgets. Ease of access to corporate data is becoming more important in an increasingly mobile work environment, and on-premise solutions can provide that cloud-like experience, without all the unnecessary risk or budget increases.