How to Ensure Reliability and Safety in a Cloud-Connected World

Cloud computing and shifting gears towards web applications have been one of the major advancements witnessed on the technology front over the last decade. Unlike self-hosted servers which are traditional, cloud hosting comes with the flexibility and power that allows anyone across the globe to have access to content, as long as they have an internet connection. The content is further shared across multiple servers throughout multiple geographic locations by mirroring to avoid loss of data. However, with cloud hosting there are risks involved as well – primarily on the security and privacy front. There are a couple of precautionary measures besides the usual ones, like changing of passwords and usage of firewalls, to safeguard your important data getting uploaded across multiple servers.

Best practices while cloud hosting

Needless to mention, but your cloud security is as good as the company that is hosting and in charge of maintaining your data. Trust is extremely critical when it comes to entrusting the responsibility of your data on someone else’s hands because it is hard to physically audit the cloud provider.

There are giants in this field, such as Microsoft and Apple, who are major players in the cloud storage and hosting world. The reason your data could be reliable with such big players is due to their extensive experience in the market which helps ward of malicious effects. It makes it extremely difficult for hackers to access the data due to the fact that these players generally hire some of the leading and most experienced talents in the world. However, no matter how big and reliable a company could be, when it comes to cloud hosting, you need to bear a certain degree of risk in mind about your data content.

Encryption and security

Almost all of the cloud computing companies would have the data you share in encrypted form and also do some high degree encryption in the transit between your personal computer and their servers. Most of the cloud hosting companies are involved with a certain form of encryption which leaves the encryption key with them in their possession, whereas it could have been a much better and reliable game all together had you been able to encrypt the files from your end locally.

Encryption safeguards your data by making it non readable to anyone other than you. Even when the cloud server hosts the data in encrypted form, it is unable to scan, read or access the data. This could be a great way to make sure your data is absolutely secure; however, there are downsides of this as well. The cloud services will not be able to properly synchronise your files and have the content displayed properly on web applications because the files are not transparent to it.

What about your own cloud?

By now you might be thinking what if you host your data on your own cloud. Yes, you can certainly do that and avoid being worried about the security of your data being with another company who can scan it and use it for marketing and promotions. Hosting your own cloud could be a great option as it uses your present web host and server and uses free software, like Own Cloud, to get started with hosting your own data on the cloud.