Is Cloud Hosting Safe for Your Business?
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As technology advances and businesses see the need to adjust to different frameworks and hosting opportunities, we are learning more about “the cloud” and just what it can do for our businesses. Cloud hosting has become a very real opportunity for most businesses.
But is it really safe? How can we be certain that the data we are tossing into the cloud is secure and not just out there for everyone to access?
In this guide, we’re going to talk about cloud hosting and just how safe and reliable it is for your business.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting ultimately takes all your applications and resources and turns them into cloud resources, rather than desktop or system applications. While many businesses are built on networks and servers, the cloud offers the same ingenuity without requiring you to use a server room or network connections to pull things together.
Cloud hosting basically allows you to host your website, applications, and other important aspects in the cloud. You can spread the data out, connect the details, and keep it all virtual in the cloud, rather than in a physical location.
Most people believe that hosting in the cloud actually opens up a door to more possibilities overall. You have access across the board and can interconnect far more easily, giving a business the ability to host people in a wider geographical setting.
Cloud hosting uses multiple machines that aren’t your machines on site in order to host, so you have a lot of extra potential and probably even a lot more accessibility with the cloud.
Public Cloud and Private Cloud
When it comes to a business, you will most likely use some public cloud and a lot of private cloud. It depends on the connected aspect to the cloud for your business. The public cloud and private cloud both have their place, and it depends on your needs and how you will use them.
Here’s a great way to consider the differences. If you’re familiar at all with how servers work for a business, some businesses use a shared server, which provides an access point to multiple people for the same thing. It’s like a drive or a folder that anyone granted permission can access.
Then, there is also a dedicated server, which is more like a personal server meant just for you or just for your device and access.
It’s the same with cloud access. Public cloud is like a shared server where multiple people can share the access to that cloud location. Private cloud is like a dedicated survey and is private and personal to just the dedicated user or machine.
Most businesses use a mix of both private and public cloud, depending on their setup and data.
The difference between the cloud and the physical server is that you aren’t sharing things like processing power or disk space with other users.
Cloud Hosting Security
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Now that you understand a little bit about cloud hosting and how it works, let’s circle back to the security factor.
At one time, the internet was scary, and at one time the cloud was scary, too. Most of this circles back to simply not understanding it. We hear about data breaches from the internet, and that certainly is a logical reason to question whether using the cloud is really safe or not.
Cloud hosting includes cloud security, which is designed to ensure your data is always available to you and always safely stored away in the cloud. There are several security measures in place, including firewalls, encryption, compliance requirements, and even authentication requirements.
Here are some of the primary reasons you can depend on for cloud hosting to be secure and safe for your business.
Backup is a Constant Thing
You may or may not be familiar with an extensive backup process. If you use an iPhone, you’ve seen the messages about backing up your data and maybe even the notifications where backup failed because your cloud storage is full.
It’s a similar concept here, except the cloud storage won’t be full and backup won’t fail. On the cloud, everything is immediately backed up, regardless of where it is located. One employee may be working in England while another is working in Maine in the United States.
Both of these employees, when on the same cloud hosting parameters, have backup right where they are. No in-house machines are required at multiple locations. The data just backs up automatically into the cloud and it happens on an ongoing basis.
Forget Data Loss
Since your data is on the cloud and is constantly backed up, you are far less likely to lose data if something goes wrong. On a physical server, if it goes down or fails, you lose anything that’s not backed up.
In the event of a hacker or data breach, all of the data can be lost or compromised. In the cloud, that data is protected and it won’t be lost should something go wrong.
High-Level Firewall
The cloud is protected by high-level firewall security. This isn’t your typical firewall, either. It’s set up for protection from unwelcome guests as well as things like phishing, hacker attempts, malware, and more.
Cloud firewall protection works against all of these things plus spam and viruses, and includes a system known as an IPS or Intrusion Protection System, which notices attempts to attack and deploys countermeasures against it.
Encryption
Everything within the cloud and your cloud hosting connection will be encrypted. The source of the encryption could vary, as could how it works, but the tools are there. In some cases, your cloud provider will supply encryption, and other times it will be up to the customer.
Cloud Hosting Services
Cloud hosting is safe for your business and might actually be more secure than using a physical server in some instances. Host for Web offers cloud hosting services to meet your needs, and we’re here to support you with every step.