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Cloud computing has been seeing rapid adoption around the world over the past few years; because it is a truly beneficial IT solution that can help businesses achieve greater growth and success.

While many businesses have already jumped on the Cloud bandwagon, others prefer to take a cautious stance. Despite its many advantages, Cloud adoption comes with certain risks and challenges.

Here is a look at the five biggest Cloud computing concerns and how you can overcome themÂ.

Security and Privacy

Security is one of the top priorities for businesses, especially those that have to deal with sensitive data on a regular basis.

Many businesses are hesitant to adopt Cloud computing because having their sensitive data residing in the Cloud means leaving it in the hands of outsiders.

However, most Cloud service providers are now able to offer the same level of protection as on-premise computing systems.

When you are choosing a Cloud service, it is important that you find out about the security solutions that the provider is using and the assurances that it is willing to provide in the event of a data breach.

Also, you can make your data more secure by implementing a strong user authentication solution.

Regulatory Compliance

According to an article entitled “The 5 Biggest Security Concerns with Cloud Computing“, businesses in North America are required to comply with certain data security regulations.

There are numerous regulations that apply to the handling of sensitive data, and this makes achieving and maintaining compliance a daunting task. Make sure you select a provider that is truly compliant.

Loss of Control

When you are using a Cloud service, you have to rely on your provider to keep your workloads up and running, protect your data and perform backup and recovery.

The lack of visibility and control that comes with Cloud computing can make you feel vulnerable.

You can alleviate this concern by choosing a provider that has an excellent track record and using management tools that enable you to gain good visibility into your entire Cloud environment.

Reliability and Availability

Service disruptions used to be a relatively common part of the Cloud experience, but most Cloud providers have improved their uptimes dramatically over the years.

Many providers have created multiple redundancy levels in their systems to enhance the reliability and availability of their services, and they have also developed excellent backup and recovery plans to mitigate the impact of Cloud outages. Selecting one of these providers will give you a better Cloud experience.

Interoperability

Being locked into a Cloud service is another challenge that you may face after you switch to Cloud computing.

Businesses value the freedom of being able to move data and workloads in and out of the Cloud with minimal issues, and lock-in is one of the factors that make them think twice about adopting the Cloud.

In order to overcome this challenge, you need to make sure that your provider can seamlessly integrate your Cloud computing needs with its IT operations.

Once you get past these concerns, you will be able to take full advantage of the benefits of Cloud computing.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Pixomar at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: John McMalcolm is a freelance writer who writes on a wide range of subjects, from social media marketing to Cloud computing.

Stuart Foster at The Lost Jacket has written a post recently about The Rise of Cloud Marketing:

“We’re all in.”

Cloud computing is a way of computing, via the Internet, that broadly shares computer resources instead of using software or storage on a local PC.

Microsoft has bet its future on this technology. You can find it being used to distribute .torrents, ease the pressure on servers and scale up and down appropriately. They’re “all in”, so why haven’t content creators jumped on board?

Fear and a loss of control.

The cloud breaks down and distributes and disseminates bits of information so they can be reassembled later in a more complete narrative. Marketing needs to work and think in this same way.

We can’t rely on our customers being able to see the entirety of an integrated campaign anymore. They’re far more likely to see bits and pieces of content here and there and only have a brief encounter with your messaging.

That last paragraph contains a powerful statement, and shows the inherent difficulty that businesses can have in creating marketing messages that are able to be used in different media. The difficulty is that one marketing vehicle, such as a 30-second TV spot, does not work on every platform. Sure we have seen this before, in a limited fashion, with the differences in print marketing vs TV or radio – but the entire game has changed now. Your marketing message needs to incorporate Social Media, web-based platforms, and mobile devices.

Half of my Marketing Budget is Wasted

The old cliche about marketing used to be that a business knew that part of the money and effort spent on marketing was wasted, they just didn’t know which part. A recent survey mentioned in the WSJ shows that this perception is still true in the days of Social Media:

…a separate survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What’s more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.

The good news is that we can measure the effectiveness of these new media much better than the old media.

The bad news is that “…the latter survey’s respondents say it requires more effort than expected.” That’s right people, Social Media marketing is not a Golden Goose that lays marketing eggs for you. It takes work, it takes time. Engagement and relationship-building are the new means of marketing, even as the goal remains the same.

Find out where your customers are, then go there and listen, learn, and finally – get involved. Talk to them in their language using the tools that they use and you will have taken the first concrete steps toward integrating your marketing. Building a foundation that your business can grow on.