Governing the cloud

Cloud computing will fundamentally change the computing landscape, but it also introduces challenges in governance and data responsibility.

This is according to John Hope-Bailie, technical director at Demand Data, a subsidiary of black-empowered SI Group, based in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The company is an EMC premier solution partner, and provides consulting, management and systems integration services.

Hope-Bailie says the new Companies Act and the release of the King III report represent milestones in the evolution of corporate governance in SA. He adds that they also underline the need for sound governance practices.

“Cloud computing is a basket in which a whole bunch of new technologies can find a home. What's particularly unique in the South African context, is that connectivity is a major challenge compared to elsewhere, and this is in a technological time where high-speed connectivity is becoming vital,” says Hope-Bailie.

He believes the new Companies Act won't really change anything with respect to ICT. However, it will impact on King III, where governance and compliance issues are stressed. He notes that cloud computing service providers will eventually be talking about protecting data in new ways.

Hope-Bailie says that if a cloud service provider goes belly-up and data is lost, liability needs to be pushed to both the service provider hosting the precious data as well as the company contracting the service. In addition, the service provider needs to be able to prove it has executed real governance.

“South African companies still tend to be conservative about putting their data into the cloud. We are still seeing reluctance by many companies to put their financial data into the hands of a cloud computing service provider. We are likely to start seeing backup and archiving to find a home in the cloud.”

The cloud is still mainly targeted at the larger enterprise. Hope-Bailie blames recession, limited financial resources and lack of governance maturity as some of the reasons why small companies have not widely turned to the cloud.

“Small companies haven't shown much respect for compliance regulations and I don't foresee this changing in the short-term.”

The overall level of digital information growth is expected to increase by more than 50% year-on-year, driving the need for more storage. Cloud computing brings benefits of managing a virtually unlimited amount of data, which ultimately results in reduced costs.

Global research firm Gartner says IT spending in 2010 will total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3% increase from 2009. One of the key trends accelerating this expected growth will be a shift to cloud computing, it adds.

A recent ITWeb cloud computing survey showed 61% of respondents believe SA is not ready for cloud computing; mostly based on the state of the current public infrastructure. However, more than 80% of the participants said cloud computing has a significant role to play in the South African market.