Benefits of the Cloud: Increased Security and Data Backup

The third edition of our Benefits of the Cloud series is here. Today, we will focus on how the cloud can provide your business increased security, data backup, and disaster recovery of your files and information.

Increased Security Measures in Place for your Data

With cyber security threats becoming more and more common, your business needs to choose the right hosting platform that will keep your data secure. Cloud hosting typically offers more security to your data than traditional hosting and can be much more cost-effective.

Cloud-hosting companies constantly update and invest money into innovating their security measures through design, testing, and implementation. They must generally adhere to strict regulatory and compliance laws and mandates. This also means they are running on the latest technology to support these security updates versus traditional hosting, which may be on older technology.

A lot of security breaches happen because your network is unpatched, and hackers can get through to access your data. This is something you don’t have to worry about as much in the cloud because cloud hosting companies are always patching the network. Patching is much harder on traditional hosting networks.

Another great feature of the cloud is that you have the ability to tailor your security settings to the needs of your business. This is controlled in one location, eliminating the need for a member of your team to closely monitor your security on a routine basis.

With cloud hosting, your business no longer needs to invest and spend money on security software or hardware, which will also help reduce your overhead and administrative costs. Your IT team will no longer have to dedicate resources to reactively fighting off cyber threats and issues since that will now be managed by your cloud provider.

Another benefit of being cloud-hosted is you do not have to worry about manually updating your security measures on your computers. Since your data is now in the cloud, your cloud hosting company will automatically do this for you with no disruption to service.

You can rest assured that your data will be safe in the cloud. Most cloud servers are located in secure warehouses, and people do not have access to them. These servers are safer than locally hosting or keeping files on your computer’s hard drive.

Hackers can use phishing emails and malware to retrieve data stored on your hard drive easily. Files stored in the cloud are typically encrypted or scrambled, making it difficult for cybercriminals to access or steal.

The cloud also offers you artificial intelligence (AI) and firewalls to keep your data extra secure. Cloud companies have implemented AI measures as the first line of defense that monitors for any security threats. If any are found, the clouds IT team is notified and will immediately begin fixing the issue.

Firewalls also help to filter out any suspicious activity or traffic. They keep your data behind a “wall” that makes it hard for hackers to access with malware or viruses.

Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Through Redundancy

Another unparalleled benefit of hosting your data in the cloud is access to data backup and disaster recovery measures. The cloud operates with many servers and data centers spread throughout the country. Your data is copied and archived onto remote servers as a backup so you will not experience data loss in the event of an issue.

If something were to happen, such as a power outage, natural disaster, or system failure, your data would be safe and secure. You would be able to “recover” it quickly with little to no interruption to your work.

With traditional hosting, you only have access to one server. If that server has an issue, you will not be able to access your data and you may lose valuable information. Traditional hosting also requires that you figure out a process to back up your data in the event your server goes down. This requires more of a manual effort versus the automation of data backup in the cloud.

Increased security and data backup are just two more of the major benefits of being hosted in the cloud. Stay tuned for the next edition of our Benefits in the Cloud series to see why more people are migrating their hosting needs over to the cloud from traditional servers.