2014: Cloud's Victory Procession?

We've only been in the New Year a few weeks and it’s quickly becoming clear that 2014 is the year of the cloud. Even the committed laggards or cloud refuseniks are being compelled to move some services into the cloud.

But you would expect us to say that of course. As in all things, there’s always another point of view to consider. One of our older posts on the value of the cloud received a challenging comment that warrants a response. This comment gave us all the opportunity to reconsider why a commitment to cloud services makes sense for customers of all kinds and sizes, even those within regulated industries.

The comment challenged our stand on the cloud:

“…Regulation may require certain data controls/protections/audit trails which a Hosted product can't provide and Exchange (Windows Server Standard plus Exchange software, backups, redundant power, etc.) remain cost prohibitive....”

Initially I was just going to post a response to the comment, but as it has been some time since the original post, I thought that it was worth bringing this discussion right to the top of our blog. Thank you John for taking the time to comment on the post – I hope this post acts as an update, a reassertion of our belief that the cloud is actually more and more an ideal solution specifically for companies of all sizes dealing with the additional pressures of regulatory control.

Most Mimecast customers face these issues. So why is the cloud the solution to their needs?

In the world of email, these industries have high demands on storing and accessing their data – they need sophisticated e-discovery capabilities, granular legal hold functionality, centralization of archives and rigorous compliance capabilities. They have a heavy security requirement too, of course.

The bottom line is that neither on-premise or cloud archiving solutions address these demands perfectly. But what is clear is that in terms of centralization of data, cost to the business, and time to implement, cloud has and will continue to be the better option. And it’s these powerful values which are driving business as a whole towards hosted services, including finance and legal.

As far back as 2011, data were beginning to emerge about this wholesale shift to cloud services. At that point, about one-fifth of companies had already moved their email archiving to cloud or hosted options, away from on-premise. In the same study a significant number of those maintaining capacity in-house had experienced failures in hardware and software implementations, and one third had lost emails – possibly as a result.

Also, remaining barriers have been broken down.

Initial reticence regarding data ownership in the cloud has given way to proof of credibility built by vendors providing well-trained engineers and experts available to support the service. These services offer parity with traditional options. For example, in the case of archiving, email should be stored in its original format mirrored to multiple locations. In addition, written into a vendor’s SLA should be a guarantee that the customer’s data will only be stored within appropriate jurisdictions, to ensure compliance with the regulations imposed in some sectors.

So to answer the original question, is the cloud always the solution? The answer is actually in a few cases it may not be for everyone. But as cloud services continue to mature, these exceptions will become few and far between.