Could Cloud Databases Save Your Company Money?

When running a company where customers trust their information to that company, that company needs to have a secure way to store the information entrusted to them. This report’s purpose is to inform you of the choices you have in selecting a method to store you information and data. When making your choice you should consider security, availability/reliability, and operational costs. There are two ways to securely store and collect your data, which are on site databases and cloud databases. Cloud databases are all around us and most of us use these services every day. There are hundreds of different cloud data base providers. Companies like Google, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and email providers all store your data into a cloud database (Strickland, 2014). If you are the average person, odds are that you use and have data stored in a cloud database. Cloud storage data centers can range from small operations with one physical server to huge operations where the physical equipment can fill up an entire warehouse (Strickland, 2014). You might think, if you are storing your data in the cloud, shouldn’t it just bounce around in the clouds until you need to access it? Well that is not how it works; the cloud is just what they call the services. The data stored in the cloud is actually stored in different physical locations around the world. The reason they call it the cloud is because you access the servers you are using through a web based interface. Severs and the equipment that is required to run them are very expensive for a company to run and maintain. Servers are computers and like every machine are going to need to be maintained and fix at some time. This is why redundancy (Storing data in multiple locations) is very important for a database (Strickland, 2014). If a certain server needs to be repaired and taken offline and your data is only stored on that one server you would not be able to access it. You should not rely on keeping all of your data stored in your own equipment, what would happen if your whole system was infected with a virus? Storing your backup data in the cloud is like not putting all your eggs in one basket (Strickland, 2014). It is always better to be safe than sorry. Losing all the data stored on a server could end a company if there are no backup’s offsite. To keep this from happening cloud storage companies store the same data on servers that use different power supplies. They do this just in case there is a power outage, you can still retrieve your data. Without redundancy cloud storage systems could not guarantee that users could access their information whenever they want. Having your data stored in multiple locations is for your benefit, this way you can have access to your secure data anytime you need it. This is also a great way to protect your data if you have your own servers. There is always the chance that a disgruntle employee can use his permissions to delete and corrupt data on a company’s servers. This is a risk that you have to take in to account when using cloud storage because you are not in charge of who gets hired and the security background checks done on individuals. Even though there are security policies in place to keep direct attacks from happening, it is hard to catch this act before hand. An employee with the right permissions or access to encryption keys could tamper with configurations, log files, or even the DB software and data itself (Nissany, 2011). Many people say that the cloud is unsecure to theft or data corruption. Cloud databases have standards in place to protect your data. Authentication practices and encryptions are used to keep your data secure. Authentication practices use techniques like strong passwords, smart cards and biometrics. Strong passwords contain at least one upper case, one lower case, one special character, one number and must me at least 8 characters long. Smart cards are read by the