The benefits of organizations moving some or all their IT workloads to the cloud are well-known and numerous. There are several challenges to successful cloud adoption, though, and one of the most important of them is compliance. Whether your cloud use case is low-cost data storage, scaling your infrastructure for critical business apps or disaster recovery, this article helps inform you about and overcome compliance issues in cloud computing.

Why Compliance Matters in the Cloud

Several different industry regulations govern how organizations should manage and secure sensitive data. Depending on your company’s industry and service type, you may need to comply with regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS or SOX.

Such regulations enforce guidelines, practices and policies that help to protect peoples’ sensitive data and improve information security. Being compliant means that you can pass an audit of your IT security processes, software and workflows such that they fall in line with the rules of relevant regulations.

Non-compliance with regulations can result in hefty fines, lawsuits and damage to organizations’ reputations. The COVID-19 pandemic and its changes to the way people work have resulted in even the most cautious companies shifting some services to the cloud. Quickfire cloud adoptions, whether due to COVID or a pressing desire to scale IT services, often come at the cost of neglecting compliance.

Knowing about the main compliance issues in cloud computing and how to overcome them better equips your business to benefit from a successful and secure cloud implementation.

1. Data Security Responsibility

There are three main cloud service models delivered to companies over either public Internet connections or private connections. These are as follows:

  • IaaS: Storage, network or virtualization accessible as pay-as-you-go services.
  • PaaS: Hardware and software packaged and delivered as a solution stack via an Internet connection (Read more...)