Since the term “Cloud Computing” was first coined in 2006, by then Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, there have been countless myths surrounding the concept. In this blog, we’re going to cover the 5 most common cloud myths that we encounter when speaking with customers about how to best store their data, including price, backups, encryption, security and physical locations.

If you can think of some other big cloud myths that we may have missed, please let us know in the comments and we can add them in below!

Cloud Myth 1: Cloud infrastructures are unsecured

Fact - it’s actually more secure for small businesses to use cloud services.

One of the most common misconceptions about cloud services is that they lack appropriate security measures. Many users think that any data stored in the cloud could be easily accessed by anyone, from anywhere. This is completely untrue. Cloud services providers like Google employ hundreds of security experts and spend millions of pounds each year, innovating to improve on security and offer new techniques such as two-factor authentication to keep your data safe.

Cloud Myth 2: Cloud services are expensive

Smaller organisations often can’t afford to have their own IT department, nevermind training them to handle online security threats. However, cloud providers offer services like multi-layered security systems and antivirus protection that keep their infrastructures safe from hackers but are also available at affordable prices through subscription services per user. Compare this to the huge setup costs and wages that are involved in running an in-house IT department and the value of a subscription service quickly shows its worth.

Cloud Myth 3: The cloud lacks proper encryption

Fact - Google encrypts all core G Suite data, inside and outside of Google.

Most people misunderstand how encryption is implemented to keep your data safe. For example, encryption is generally used for data in transition, where data is protected from anyone seeing it as it travels from one internet address to another. But encryption can also be applied to data at rest. This means that data is encrypted on a storage drive - like all data is when it’s stored within Google Drive.

Cloud Myth 4: You can always recover your cloud data

Fact - Cloud solutions are not natively designed for data restoration.

Cloud providers do offer different levels of data recovery services but not all solutions are designed to make all data available to customers. With many online services, the only built-in backup available for your data is the recycling bin, which is usually deleted automatically after 30 days. Having your data in the cloud does not mean that it is backed up - this data is still vulnerable to accidental/malicious deletion from employees and sophisticated cyber attacks. It is always our recommendation to use a cloud-to-cloud backup solution which provides automatic daily backups of your data and can restore any lost files at any time.

Cloud Myth 5: We need to have our data in our country

Fact - How data is secured is more important than where data is located.

When using Google Drive, data is stored and processed in several data centres around the world. Google's security practices are consistent across all relevant locations. Storing data in a particular country doesn't necessarily protect it from access by foreign governments. Microsoft was ordered to produce the mail content of a customer whose information was stored in Ireland. As well as this, localizing data in one country can also slow down collaboration and innovation.

Contact

If you would like to find out more about moving to and working in the cloud, or you would just like to learn more about G Suite and what it can offer your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via [email protected], or pop your email down below. We would be delighted to have a chat about how we could help.

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