Knowing the Caveats in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become such a buzzword in business circles today that many organisations both small and large, are quick to jump on the cloud bandwagon – sometimes a little too hastily.

Yes, the benefits of the cloud are numerous: reduced infrastructure costs, improved performance, faster time-to-market, capability to develop more applications, lower IT staff expenses; you get the picture. But contrary to what many may be expecting or have been led to believe, cloud computing is not without its share of drawbacks, especially for smaller organisations who have limited knowledge to go on with.

So before businesses move to the cloud, it pays to learn a little more about the caveats that could meet them along the way. Here are some tips to getting started with cloud computing as a small business consumer.

Know your cloud. As with anything else, knowledge is always key. Because it is a relatively new tool in IT, it’s not surprising that there is some confusion about the term cloud computing among many business owners and even CIOs. According to the document The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, cloud computing has five essential characteristics, three basic service models (Saas, Paas and Iaas), and four deployment models (public, community, private and hybrid).

The first thing organisations should do is make a review of their operations and evaluate if they really need a cloud service. If they would indeed benefit from cloud computing, the next steps would be deciding on the service model that would best fit the organisation and choosing the right cloud service provider. These factors are particularly important when you consider data security and compliance issues.

Read the fine print. Before entering into a contract with a cloud provider, businesses should first ensure that the responsibilities for both parties are well-defined, and if the cloud vendor has the vital mechanisms in place for contingency measures. For instance, how does the provider intend to carry out backup and data retrieval operations? Is there assurance that the business’ critical data and systems will be accessible at all times? And if not, how soon can the data be available in case of a temporary shutdown of the cloud?

Also, what if either the company or the cloud provider stops operations or goes bankrupt? It should be clear from the get go that the data remains the sole property of the consumer or company subscribing to the cloud.

As you can see, there are various concerns that need to be addressed closely before any agreement is finalised. While these details are usually found in the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of most outsourcing and servicing contracts, unfortunately, the same cannot be said of cloud contracts.

Be aware of possible unforeseen costs. The ability of smaller companies to avail of computing resources on a scalable, pay-as-you-go model is one of the biggest selling points of cloud computing. But there’s also an inherent risk here: the possibility of runaway costs. Rather than allowing significant cost savings, small businesses could end up with a bill that’s bound to blow a big hole in their budget.

Take for example the case of a software company cited on InformationWeek.com to illustrate this point. The 250-server cluster the company rented from a cloud provider was inadvertently left turned on by the testing team over the weekend. As a result, their usual $2,300 bill ballooned to a whopping $23,400 over the course of one weekend.

Of course, in all likelihood, this isn’t going to happen to every small and midsize enterprise that shifts to the cloud. However, this should alert business owners, finance executives, and CEOs to look beyond the perceived savings and identify potential sources of unexpected costs. What may start as a fixed rate scheme for on-demand computing resources, may end up becoming a complex pricing puzzle as the needs of the business grow, or simply because of human error as the example above shows.

The caveats we’ve listed here are among the most crucial ones that soon-to-be cloud adopters need to keep in mind. But should these be reasons enough for businesses to stop pursuing a cloud strategy? Most definitely not. Armed with the right information, cloud computing is still the fastest and most effective way for many small enterprises to get the business off the ground with the lowest start-up costs.

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Computer Forensics

So you had a customer data security breach last weekend? Do you know you could be held liable in court for failing to implement required security procedures? That’s right. Due to the overwhelming surge in identity theft wherein nearly 20 million Americans have already been affected, most states have enacted laws to curtail this fast rising crime. Therefore, it is important to redefine how your company deals with customer data security.

  • First, you’ll want to know what your obligations are as dictated by law. Some places, for example, require the destruction or deletion of personal data through shredding, erasing, or by rendering them undecipherable.
  • Second, not only do you need to comply with the said requirements, you’ll also have to prove in court that you actually complied if ever a security breach does happen.
  • Third, you need to be aware of your post-breach duties to avoid being dealt additional penalties.

Obviously, such situations now call for individuals who are experts in both the legal and technical aspects regarding data security. Such individuals are practitioners of a relatively new discipline known as computer forensics.

Armed with our computer forensics specialists, we’ll be able to help you deal with the above concerns. As a result, you can be prevented from having to pay fines that can go up to hundreds of thousands of euros.

There are other equally important reasons why you would want to avail of computer forensics services. For example, you’ll need computer forensics specialists because you want to:

  • Catch a person involved in criminal activities such as child porn, stealing of personal data, and destroying intellectual property.
  • Investigate a computer, network, or even a mobile device for clues that may lead to the culprit.
  • Determine the extent and possible causes when you discover your digital data has been damaged.
  • Find and recover damaged, deleted or encrypted data regardless of whether the cause was intentional or not. If the data in question will be used as evidence in a legal action, there are certain procedures that need to be followed during recovery operations to retain the integrity of the data. Computer forensic specialists are highly qualified for such operations.
  • Implement security policies in your organisation. Such policies have to operate within legal bounds if you want to avoid possible sanctions in the future. These policies should also be designed such that future forensic operations can be conducted with a high likelihood of success.

That said, a company that integrates computer forensics into its IT security policies and practices will be better equipped to remedy the situation once data security has already been compromised than a company that doesn’t.

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Malware

In the past, viruses were created with the sole purpose of wreaking havoc on the infected systems. A large fraction of today’s malware, on the other hand, are designed to generate revenues for the creator. Spyware, botnets, and keyloggers steal information from your system or control it so that someone else can profit. In other words, the motivation for making them is now more attractive than before.

Keyloggers can reveal your usernames, passwords, PIN numbers, and other authentication information to their creators by recording your key strokes. This information can then be used for breaking into various accounts: credit cards, payment programs (like PayPal), online banks, and others. You’re right, keyloggers are among the favourite tools of individuals involved in identity theft.

Much like the viruses of old, most present day malware drain the resources, such as memory and hard disk space, of contaminated systems; sometimes forcing them to crash. They can also degrade network performance and in extreme cases, may even cause a total collapse.

If that’s not daunting enough, imagine an outbreak in your entire organisation. The damage could easily cost your organisation thousands of euros to repair. That’s not even counting yet the value of missed opportunities.

Entry points for malware range from optical disks, flash drives, and of course, the Internet. That means, your doors could be wide open to these attacks at this very moment.

Now, we’re not here to promise total invulnerability, as only an unplugged computer locked up in a vault will ever be totally safe from malware. Instead, this is what we’ll do:

  • Perform an assessment of your computer usage practices and security policies. Software and hardware alone won’t do the trick.
  • Identify weak points as well as poor practices and propose changes wherever necessary. Weak points and poor practices range from the use of perennial passwords and keeping old, unused accounts to poorly configured firewalls.
  • Install malware scanners and firewalls and configure them for maximal protection with minimal effect on network and system performance.
  • Implement regular security patches.
  • Conduct a regular inspection on security policy compliance as well as a review of the policies to see if they are up to date with the latest threats.
  • Keep an audit trail for future use in forensic activities.
  • Establish a risk management system.
  • Apply data encryption where necessary.
  • Implement a backup system to make sure that, in a worst case scenario, archived data is safe.
  • Propose data replication so as to mitigate the after effects of data loss and to ensure your company can proceed with ‘business as usual’.

Once we’ve worked with you to make all these happen, you’ll be able to sleep better.

Other defences we’re capable of putting up include:

How an EMS Can Cut Your Carbon Emissions

Your business carbon footprint is directly tied to the efficiency of its energy consumption. From the equipment used in industries, lighting and air conditioning in offices, shopping malls and other commercial buildings, the load used by everyday machines like the coffee makers in the employee breakroom, to hot water boilers in apartment complexes, how much do your processes affect the environment? Standards like the ISO 14001:2015 are being implemented to enable businesses to reduce their impact on the environment, from optimising their energy usage, minimising waste, turning to renewable power sources, all through to preventing pollution and complying with their specific regulatory requirements. How do you handle the volume of data that needs to be obtained and assessed?

Energy management systems come in to enable you to analyse your consumption, identify factors affecting your total energy use – from temperature and humidity conditions, to equipment that is causing spikes, and observe your usage patterns. That way, you can put in measures to minimise wastage while increasing your operational efficiency, reduce your carbon emissions and track your progress all the way. Here, we’ll break down how this is achieved. 

Going Green With An Energy Management System

This is a holistic approach aimed at minimising wastage and optimising energy usage. It includes:

Auditing your energy consumption

The first step is really quantifying how much energy you use, which systems are causing unnecessary load, all through to where there are inefficiencies in the facility. Which equipment has the largest impact on your bill? An energy management system allows you to view it all from one dashboard, such as with the ecoVaro EMS that takes you down to the sub-meter level.

Here, you get real-time data that is collected by the ecoVaro loggers – from electricity use, gas, water, temperature, solar power, humidity, air pressure – the readings can all be monitored. This is done 24/7, and the consumption feeds are recorded. Moreover, ecoVaro pulse data is collected every 15 minutes – which is particularly important when it comes to analysing trends over a time period, be it daily, weekly or monthly. 

Data is only useful if it can be properly analysed, right? So instead of just bombarding you with spreadsheets of numbers, the EMS displays the records into graphs and charts that are easy to comprehend – all from the same interactive interface. So, whether you’re the energy manager in the facility, or you want reports that can be shared with the CFO, owners of the business, or even staff themselves to enable them to understand the energy saving policies that you will put in place – you will be able to carry this out. 

ecoVaro gives you different ways to analyse the data from the readings that have been recommended. For instance, the heat mapping from the interface allows you to see the building’s energy use during different periods at a glance. The site-by-site analysis in particular enables the building or energy manager to assess each individual premises, from checking which block in the school is causing the energy bills to surge, the facility whose performance is falling behind, all through to the office building with the highest carbon footprint. In fact, the carbon and sustainability reports from ecoVaro EMS enables you to see the impact that your operations have. You even get to compare tariffs from the different energy suppliers, that way you can go with the option that is most suited to your situation.

Setting a baseline for your operations

This is essentially a “before/after checkpoint” that you will use to compare the effectiveness of subsequent measures that you will undertake. After making modifications to the systems in your business, you will want a clear picture of whether the new measures are actually benefiting your operations and optimising your energy efficiency, or whether they are deteriorating the performance further. The energy baseline will be critical in analysing your progress. 

Reports like the CUSUM (cumulative sum) charts on ecoVaro show you the energy performance, be it of a boiler in a factory, office building, or chain of hotels – over a set period of time. You can then compare this to the baseline, which will show you if the changes you will implement will make you savings. The heatmaps also come in handy here, showing you the energy consumption at each meter, whether it is low, medium or high compared to the baseline that has been set. The heatmaps give a quick visual to analyse resource usage.  

Creating energy targets

After understanding your energy consumption and seeing how it impacts your business, next is mapping out short- and long-term goals that you want to attain to optimise your usage and reduce your carbon footprint. 

For instance, short-term targets can include the likes of decreasing the night-time lighting load, and adjusting HVAC uptime depending on the level of activity in your business premises for the different hours of the day. 

For the long-term targets, these include setting a specific percentage average kWh reduction for the different industrial sites or buildings under your management; lowering the demand kW throughout the building by a specific range year-on-year; as well as the percentage with which you want the carbon emissions decreased annually. 

Cost efficiency also factors in. For instance, entering your current tariffs into the conversion factoring dashboard on ecoVaro will show you how your consumption translates to the bills that you receive – and even shows you what you stand to save by negotiating for new energy contracts with your utility firm.

Identifying initiatives and implementing energy saving programs

These are geared towards improving your energy efficiency and reducing your carbon footprint. They vary from one industry to the next. For instance, these can include:

Getting motion/occupancy detectors and automatic dimmers installed in the facility

These are lighting controls that enable you to save money and energy by automatically turning the lights off when they are not required (people have left the room), and reducing the light levels for those cases where full-on brightness is not needed. For instance, the dimmer controls enable variable indoor lighting, reducing the wattage and output when dimming the lightbulbs, saving energy in the process. These can be manual, or operated with sensors or timers. 

Motion sensors on the other hand will automatically turn on the lights after they detect motion, then after a short while turn them off – they are typically used for utility and outdoor security lighting. There are also occupancy sensors used in rooms, which turn on the lights when they detect indoor activity, then turn them off or reduce the light output when the particular space is unoccupied. 

Switching to energy-efficient light fixtures such as CFL or LED bulbs

Lighting costs are a major contributor to the energy bills being footed by the business. What kind of systems do you have set up?

Incandescent bulbs are rapidly being phased out due to their inefficiencies. They work by a wire tungsten filament getting heated until it glows – a process that sees almost 90% of its energy being released as heat, instead of light. In addition, with an average lifespan of just 1,500 hours, there is the need for better alternatives – and they have already been around for over a decade: CFL and LED bulbs, which save on energy and have far less carbon emissions. 

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) light up when an electric current going through a tube with argon and trace mercury gases generates ultraviolet light, stimulating the fluorescent coating that’s on the inside of the tube, which in turn produces light. As such, a 15-watt CFL will have about the same light output as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. This makes them approximately 4 times more efficient compared to the incandescent bulbs, with a lifespan of 10,000-15,000 hours. This translates into fewer replacements and greater energy savings. However, there are still concerns about the mercury that is in the CFLs, though it is still in small quantities – basically smaller than the tip of your pencil. In addition, the CFLS aren’t; dimmable. They are usually used as a replacement for incandescent bulbs before completely switching to the more efficient LEDs.

Light-emitting diode bulbs (LEDs) Take things a notch higher. Here, electrons moving through a semiconductor emit the light, and you can get the LEDs for visible light, ultra-violet, and infrared spectrums. Here, the lifespan is 25,000–35,000 hours, which is more than double that of CFLs, and leagues beyond the standard incandescent bulb. Moreover, with a 16.5W LED bulb you’ll be getting the same lighting as a 20W CFL, or a 75W incandescent bulb. 

You will notice that when you touch LEDs, they feel cool, and this is because less energy is getting converted into heat. With the energy efficient bulbs, you won’t have to run your AC harder during those hot months, further adding to your cost savings. You can be able to see such consumption trends over the months through the energy management system, getting to the root cause of the problem. For instance, seeing the changing trends in the AC energy consumption over different weeks will enable you to assess what is causing it to be pushed harder, and address the root cause of the problem. 

Acquiring energy-efficient office equipment

This is broad, with the changes being made here depending on your particular niche. Take printers for instance. Simply going for printers with sleep and automatic shut-off modes will ensure that the units are not consuming energy when they are not in use. The same case applies to copier machines. Energy saving surge protectors on the other hand are beneficial for allowing you to “unplug” multiple devices that use standby power even when switched off – what’s usually called “vampire power” or “phantom energy“. 

The need for energy savings cuts across the board, from the computers and monitors used, to the coffee makers and kettles. For instance, working with an electric kettle to heat water for tea beats using a microwave or stove. Go further by opting for a kettle that allows you to set the particular temperature you want for the water – since you don’t really need the water for tea to be boiling hot for the tea to properly steep. Taking such steps further contributes to your business’ efforts to go green and reduce your carbon footprint. 

Turning to renewable energy sources

Switching to renewable sources to power your operations will simultaneously reduce your energy bills and cut your carbon emissions. From solar panels to wind turbines and the like, they are cleaner sources of energy, and the installations that you go with will depend on your kind of business. Moreover, this will protect you from the fluctuations in energy prices, since the bills are affected by the availability of fuel, electricity demand, costs that go into generating and distributing it – all of which end up hitting your business in the long run. On the other hand, going off the grid with your own supply of power protects you from this. In fact, if you end up producing surplus energy, you can sell it back to the grid, earning your business extra revenue. 

Sure, the upfront costs of setting up the systems will take a sizable chunk out of your budget, but the savings allow you to recoup the costs over time. In addition, there will be savings from the incentives being provided by the government, such as tax rebates and grants. These are the likes of the Solar PV Grant from SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland) which is at €900 per kWp, capped at €2400 for each business. Funding is available for homes, community programs and commercial buildings such as  Collinstown Park School that was able to slash their lighting costs by a whopping 90% after securing 50% of the funding for their energy upgrade project from SEAI. The ecoVaro EMS comes with support for solar power installations in its firmware, that way you can continue assessing the changes that your solar power system will bring to your overall energy usage.

Spread awareness

You should also carry out energy conservation training for your staff. The reports generated by the EMS will make it easy for them to get a picture of their energy consumption trends, and the effects that it has on both the performance of the company, and the carbon footprint as a whole. It also gives them more awareness of the impact that they each have at an individual level. 

Assessing Key Performance Indicators

The energy analytics tools from the EMS will show you whether you are actually meeting your goals. Since it works with the different metered connections, from getting electricity and temperature readings, checking radiation levels, humidity data all through to gas meters, you will be able to assess the progress that your business is making across the board. 

For ecoVaro in particular, the performance of your systems can be seen through reports like Consumption Charts – from the different offices, tenants and equipment energy usage, peak -and off-peak data, as well as Regression Charts that allow you to compare building’s actual energy consumption to its expected performance, and how they are affected by variables such as temperature. 

With the site-by-site data and the monitoring being down to the sub-meter level, you will be able to identify an issue when it crops up and narrow it down to the specific instant and location where it occurred. This enables you to address the problem quicker.   

Conducting a compliance audit

A comprehensive audit can then be undertaken to ensure that your company meets internationally-recognized standards that have been stipulated regarding implementing energy management systems and enhancing the energy efficiency of your operations. The compliance audits are carried out by certified auditors.

Through the EMS, you are able to position your business appropriately to meet the standards for your particular niche, measuring and observing the performance of energy-saving projects that have been implemented. This extends to acquiring and presenting data that will be used to show the business’s compliance to industry regulations and obtain the relevant certification. You are able to report on your carbon footprint, and verify it. This information can also be disseminated amongst your employees and customers, raising awareness about your business green initiatives, boosting your brand in the process.

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