Traditional platforms simply aren’t used anymore. Instead, it’s all about the digital economy! This is why Lloyd’s and TSB have been left behind, according to Cloud Security Architect, Hassan Altaf.
Gone are the days you need a data centre to run your business or your workloads. But is cloud computing all it seems?
Altaf comments: “Cloud computing has influenced IT and financial services massively. I’ve worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years’ and have witnessed a number of different transformations.
Identity management
“Nevertheless, it’s extremely important to watch out for cloud computing bills because resources can easily be created and it is extremely easy to go over your payment limits, without being aware unless notifications or ceiling is set for maximum spend.
“If you have an application which is based on identity management and you’re running its ‘stress-test’, its also simple to connect millions of test users to the application, making constant API calls and costing additional dollars if test users are not carefully monitored in addition to monitoring the number of API calls.”
Despite this, cloud computing can help massively towards time-to-market being reduced, which means more applications are cropping up because they are easily stored and deployed. From a management perspective, cloud computing also costs less because traditional data centres are, typically, extremely expensive to run. Just be aware that services can change, so it’s important to keep up-to-date with security.
Data classification
“When securing data in the cloud you must find out what data classification you’re going to process. Once you know this, you will know what controls and frameworks are required for securing the cloud through compliance controls, encryption and authorisation,” continues Altaf.
“Cloud computing also has the ability to automate old applications and infrastructure, which can be extremely useful.”
He also notes that the important thing when working in cloud computing is to be multi-skilled. “If not, you will be left behind”.
Written by Leah Alger
