Cloud Security: A Shared Responsibility

As more organizations and government agencies migrate their data to the cloud, many may not be aware that much of the security responsibility stays with them as the cloud user and not with the provider. In fact, security requirements for content, disaster recovery and backup will not change from the policies that were set for on-premise datacenters.

Some of the benefits to this shared responsibility for organizations and agencies are saving significant costs and relief from the necessity to manage the security of the physical hardware and related infrastructure. However, it also obliges agency IT professionals to maintain closer control over the three pillars of data protection -- backup, security and infrastructure management.

Taken together, these data protection elements allow agencies to rebound more effectively from network incursions, protect critical information and prevent problems from being repeated. To ensure organizations are properly prepared to recover from disasters, the answer is clear: They must test often. Recovery testing at regular intervals must be a best practice of every business.

Moving infrastructure to the cloud will certainly remove the burden of maintaining the physical hardware and network. But only a holistic approach that tears down the traditional silos of backup and recovery, security and infrastructure management will ensure the security of data in the cloud.