Cloudy Computing

I checked out my resources and came upon a couple of new technology articles of interest.  The Librarian in Black had two interesting slide presentations she made to an Australian audience.  The one I will share with you was entitled "3.0 tools without 3.0 million dollars."  In this presentation, she lists out many different free options which libraries and businesses can access and use when money is not in the budget for commercially purchased technology.  Google docs was mentioned for software, free blogs were mentioned for setting up social networking and marketing purposes, and free ebook sites, such as Project Gutenberg were also cited.  All in all, a good reminder that there is technology out there that does not cost anything - and we are wise to take advantage of it!

My other website, Educause, had an archived presentation of "Seven Things You Should Know About Cloud Security."  Since we were learning about cloud computing this week, I felt it would be worthwhile to check this post out.  The thrust of the article focused on how colleges and universities are using cloud computing, and how this poses a security risk for the educators.  Educause is a site dedicated to educational issues - but the security issues posed by choosing cloud computing affects anyone, educational institutions, businesses or individuals who select it as a technological option.  I was sharing what I learned with my husband, who works for a major automotive parts supplier, and he shared how their company wide email was recently contracted out to a third party.   The emails they send  could contain company secrets which could potentially threaten the profitability of the company, if their emails are not properly encrypted and protected. The fact that their emails are now stored at an external location was very controversial within the company.  This is a perfect example of how important the issue cloud security is.   This article explained that  many times in the course of protecting the information available, the availability of the information becomes limited.   So, IT personnel must consider not only the security factors, but the availability of material and weigh that against any cost savings contracting with a third party company would cause.  Is the cost savings worth the lack of flexibility?  Is the company a reputable, long term business partner?  As the article stated, "cloud security is at least as much about policy as about technology."