Cloud computing is a collective term you might have heard quite a long time back. So to make it a bit easy for you, cloud computing is about storing, accessing, and managing big data and software applications on the Internet. In this technology, the entire data is protected by firewall networks. With software and data installed in data centers worldwide, you can use the software without using your computer’s hard drive.

Cloud technology is being used by many of us in our daily lives. A typical example of cloud technology is the use of web-based email services or the preparation of any document on the Internet. In the field of information technology, there are three different types of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). All these types of cloud technologies are used for different kinds of work/services. Cloud technology is instrumental in business development because it provides impressive results promptly.

However, there is a small gap between success and failure in businesses. Choosing the right technology takes your business to new heights, and some mistakes can get your business in trouble. Every technology comes with the baggage of some pros and cons. Similarly, cloud computing has its share of problems, despite being the core strength of some businesses. This can also create some significant issues in some rare situations. Let’s talk briefly about some real-life ghosts of cloud computing.

1 — Data Security

When it comes to security concerns of cloud technology, a lot of questions remain unanswered. The biggest cloud computing data security issues are mysterious threats such as virus attack and hacking of your site. Entrepreneurs need to think about these things before adopting cloud computing technology for their business. As you transfer essential details of your company to a third party, you need to ensure you have cloud management and security system.

Cybersecurity professionals are more concerned with cloud security than other IT staff. The Crowd Research Partners survey found that 90 percent of security professionals are worried about cloud security. More specifically, they have fears of data loss and leakage (67 percent), data privacy (61 percent), and breach of confidentiality (53 percent).

In a cloud analytics survey conducted by vendor Teradata, 46 percent of those surveyed indicated increased security without the challenge of cloud computing.

2 — Lack of expertise/knowledge

Not every company has enough understanding of implementing cloud solutions. They do not have expert personnel and tools to utilize cloud technology properly. It is challenging to provide information and select the right cloud in the right direction. Teaching your employees about the process and tools of cloud computing is a huge challenge. It is as catastrophic as any company to turn their business into cloud-based technology without the right knowledge.

Many companies hope to overcome this challenge by hiring more workers with cloud computing certifications or skills. Experts also recommend training the existing staff to get them up to speed with the technology.

3 — Cloud Spending Management

Companies make many mistakes that help them increase their costs. Often, developers or other IT workers forget to rotate a cloud event to be used for a short period and turn it off. Many companies find themselves overwhelmed by unexplained cloud pricing plans that offer many opportunities for discounts that cannot be used.

Many technology solutions can help companies with cloud cost management challenges. For example, cloud cost management solutions, automation, containers, serverless services, autoscaling features, and many management tools offered by cloud vendors can help reduce the scope of the problem. Some companies have found success by building a central cloud team to manage usage and costs.

4 — Governance/Control

In today’s cloud-based world, IT does not always have complete control over infrastructure delivery, provisioning, and operation. This has increased the difficulty of IT to provide the necessary governance, compliance, risks, and data quality management. To reduce the various risks and uncertainties in moving to the cloud, IT must adopt the traditional IT management and control processes to include the cloud. To that end, the role of key IT teams in the cloud has evolved over the past few years. Along with business units, central IT plays a growing role in the choice, mediation, and governance of cloud services. In addition to this third-party cloud computing/management providers, they are gradually providing government support and best practices.

5 — Compliance

One of the risks that cloud computing faces is compliance. This is an issue for anyone using backup services or cloud storage. Every time a company moves data from internal storage to the cloud, it faces compliance with industry regulations and laws.

Interestingly, one aspect of the law on GDPR is that it will facilitate compliance in the future. Many companies need to hire a data protection officer to oversee data privacy and security as per the law requires. Assuming these individuals are familiar with the compliance requirements for the companies they work for, focusing on the responsibility for compliance will help companies meet any legal obligations.

6 — Managing Multi-Cloud Environments

Challenges facing cloud computing haven’t just been concentrated in one single cloud. According to Rightscale’s findings, 81 percent of enterprises adopt a multi-cloud strategy, and 51 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy (public and private clouds combined). In fact, on average, companies use 4.8 different public and private clouds.

Many cloud environments exacerbate the problem faced by the IT team. To overcome this challenge, experts recommend best practices such as research, training of employees, actively managing vendor relationships, and rethinking processes and tools.

7 — Immature Technology

Many cloud computing services are at the forefront of technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, and advanced big data analytics. The potential downside to accessing this fascinating new technology is that services do not always meet organizational expectations in terms of performance, usability, and reliability.

Unfortunately, the only potential cure for the problem is adjusting expectations, try to build your solution, or wait for providers to improve their offerings.

8 — Integration

Many organizations, especially those with hybrid cloud environments, report challenges related to accessing their public tools and applications to the public cloud to work together. In the Teradata survey, 30 percent of respondents said connecting old systems with cloud applications is a barrier to adoption.

This challenge, like the others mentioned in this article, will not go away any time soon. Integrating legacy systems and new cloud-based applications requires time, skill, and resources.

To Sum up

It’s no secret; Cloud computing is revolutionizing the IT industry. It also shakes up the business intelligence (BI) landscape, well, pretty much everything else it is related to. As cloud adoption grows exponentially, businesses of all sizes understand the benefits. For startups and small and medium businesses (SMEs), they cannot afford expensive server maintenance but may need to be tested overnight. And cloud solves this problem for them.

While cloud computing challenges exist, but if handled properly, these problems do not mean that your IT roadmap should remain grounded. Business intelligence (BI) and the cloud are an ideal fit, as the former provides the right information to the right people while the latter is an agile way to access BI applications.