To The Cloud and Back! Why Business Are Moving Data Out of The Cloud.
Yep... you heard that correctly. Some businesses are moving their data from the cloud back to their local office or to a datacenter rack that they lease to have more control and because of the "gotchas" discovered with cloud storage providers.
About three to five years ago there was a lot of hype and discussion about cloud storage options and the leaders were Amazon, Microsoft through Office 365 and Azure, Google and Google Drive to name a few. Today the number of cloud storage providers has grown and many other cloud services are available. While cloud services are great for many reasons, some "gotchas" to cloud storage have been overlooked by some of those who jumped on the cloud storage wagon.
One of those BIG "gotchas" is in regard to HIPAA-compliance. If you are using cloud storage and are required to be HIPAA-compliant you'll want to read this.
Did you know that in order to be HIPAA-compliant on the cloud you need to have a business associate agreement (BAA) in place with that cloud provider and the level of service you choose with that cloud provider must also be compliant? OK... but how does it relate?
Let's assume your business is using Office 365 for Business with the Office 365 Business Premium package which includes all the desktop products and the use of Sharepoint for storing and sharing documents. AND let's assume you have a business requirement to be HIPAA-compliant. According to Microsoft and Paubox.com as my reference, in order to be HIPAA-compliant with Microsoft Sharepoint you need to have a BAA with Microsoft and use their Office 365 Enterprise Level package, which means that the Sharepoint services offered through Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Business Essentials are NOT HIPAA-compliant. However, the good news is Office 365 Exchange email service can be HIPAA-compliant with a BAA in place with Microsoft.
https://www.paubox.com/blog/sharepoint-hipaa-compliant
https://www.paubox.com/blog/office-365-email-hipaa-compliant
And... as you may have guessed the similar requirements are needed for Google Drive. You'll need a BAA in place with Google AND you'll need to pay the subscription price for Google Drive in order to be compliant. There are other Google "gotchas" that you'll want to read in this reference. https://www.sookasa.com/resources/google-drive-hipaa/
Another BIG "gotchas" in regard to cloud storage is the amount of time you have to retrieve your data from the cloud storage provider if you decide to leave or change services.
Some cloud providers offer between 30 to 180 days to retrieve the data from the cloud storage. Just to give you an idea of how long 10 TB could theoretically take to down load from a cloud provider, here are some scenarios... and it is all about the sustained download speed of your internet connection.
If your sustained download internet connection is about 10 Mbps (megabits per second or approximately 1.25 MB/s megabytes per second) than it would take approximately 120 days to download 10 TBs of data from a cloud provider or 80 days for half the data (5 TBs). So... if your sustained download speed was 50 Mbps it would take 24 days to download 10 TBs of data.
Data management is key!
As your business continues to grow don't forget about data management. It is extremely easy to completely forget about our data, the speed in which it grows and keeping it clean and tidy. What do I mean... ask yourself the following questions... How much data is my business creating and how much is it growing each year? When was the last time I performed a backup to a second storage place or to my local office? Have I ever purged out my old data after 10 or 15 years? Do I still need data from 10 to 15 years ago?
Many of us, like myself, completely forget about data management. We just go out and buy bigger storage devices, like smart phones, hard drives, external portable drives, purchase more cloud storage and don't take the time to manage the data. Many of us would be surprised the percentage of "stuff" we have digitally that we no longer "need" if we just took some time and purged out the old stuff. It's kind of like cleaning out the attic, garage, basement or a relative's house who has moved or passed away. If we don't take the time to clean up our digital data, it could cost us in the long run. The cost of cloud storage will only increase over time and as pricing increases we need to be diligent about our cloud storage.
Another "gotcha" is cost! Cloud storage does not necessarily cost less... it could cost more.
This is a very debatable topic and each business is unique so I cannot say for sure one way or the other that cloud storage is "cheaper" than a local server or NAS storage. There are many things to factor in like number people needing access, the location of those people in relation to the data they need access to, data security, business requirements and the hardware or staffing over head for keeping data local to the business. I would recommend that you get in touch with an IT person that you can trust to give you an honest answer to your business needs. If you are not sure who to contact, please reach out to me and I will give you an honest answer.
What I will say is that cloud storage could cost you more in hidden costs such as time lost in the employees time getting connected, logged in and accessing of files from the cloud provider. One of the most common things I hear from those using Sharepoint cloud services is the amount of time it takes for the file to be checked-out, opened with the local desktop application like Microsoft Word or Excel, saved and then checked-in to the Sharepoint site. There are ways to use Internet Explorer to open the Sharepoint site as a "local" folder in Windows Explorer but users have still found this to be clumsy and time-consuming as well.
Cloud storage costs are guaranteed to increase as I mentioned before unless you are really good at data management and can keep your monthly costs the same, but keep in mind the cloud storage provider is in business to make money off your data being stored through their service. For every megabyte or gigabyte of increased data, it puts your storage costs closer to the next pricing level increase.
With today's technology of NAS storage devices, local storage costs continue to decrease as larger hard drives are cheaper and devices become easier to deploy. I am a fan of Synology NAS devices and my use of Weathly Affiliate is to increase website traffic to my website https://www.synologysolutions.com. The website is currently under construction as I am adding products and services for purchase. Synology devices offer options than just a storage device. They can handle user permissions, VPN access, web access and much more at a lower cost than 5 years ago. Synology is designed for the SOHO and SMB marketplace to help with local storage and common business tech needs. It is definitely an option to help businesses get out of the cloud or be a cloud backup option.
I'll leave you with one more "gotchas" of cloud storage and it can be said in one word. BACKUPS! And don't assume your cloud provider is doing backups of your data!
Cloud storage providers usually have a clause in their terms that discuss your data may not be maintained or backed up on a regular basis unless you purchase a backup option from them or unless specifically offered. Usually cloud providers suggest that you maintain a backup of your data as a recommended suggestion. If you are using a cloud service like Amazon Cloud Storage, Microsoft OneDrive and Sharepoint, Google Docs or Google Drive, do you have a local back up copy of your data? What happens to your data if your cloud provider is hacked, or your data is a victim of ransomware, or the provider has a hardware, software or power failure and goes offline like Amazon did back on February 28th, 2017. https://aws.amazon.com/message/41926/
Do an internet search for Amazon or Microsoft outages and you may be surprised how often the outages happen and why backups are not just suggested but recommended and I'd argue... required.
Closing Thoughts
In closing, these are a few reasons why some businesses are moving away from cloud storage and bringing their data back to their local office. I recognize that cloud storage is easy and convenient but keep in mind some things you may give up using cloud storage. I have clients that use one or the other and some use both. It truly depends on your business needs but I would recommend you understand what your cloud storage service is really offering and providing for you.
Don't take my word for it... take a look at what Forbes has to say about cloud services. https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymyler/2018/01/11/to-cloud-...
If you have any questions about cloud storage, local storage or have some IT questions, please do not be embarrassed or shy or hesitate to reach out to me. I've been in the IT industry for nearly 20 years and I am here to help. :-) We are all in this digital age together!
Have a great and wonderful day.
- Jerry
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