Newsletter International Q4 2011

EDITORIAL: Transparency in a cloud: how to see through the fog.

Many cloud solutions these days are like a black box; companies using the cloud services enter data at one interface and at some stage receive it again, processed. What exactly happens to the data during this time remains nebulous, and adaptability to the needs and prerequisites of one’s own company remains limited.

On top of this, users expect even more traceability of processes and revisions from cloud systems than from classical, on-premises IT. Audit functions, for instance, can reveal which activities are taking place or have taken place: for example, if a user has changed his password or made certain configuration changes. Such tools are indispensable for auditors if they are to keep track of entire IT systems.

Strictly defined privileges are extremely important for partners, resellers and administrators, right down to the individual users, especially with multiple hierarchy levels, such as in the Channel area. Assigning individual access privileges is one example of how a cloud service can be optimally adapted to existing internal structures.

It is our pledge to provide our partners and customers with the greatest transparency and autonomy possible. Our current Control Panel release takes us a step further in this direction: we provide the Notification Service, for example, with which the antispameurope partner can configure internal and external messages. Upon each triggering event, a corresponding alert will be automatically sent to predefined users or groups. Also, with Rights Management, we provide a powerful tool for controlling user and access privileges. We will show more in this newsletter on exactly how this works.

Many medium-sized businesses today still have misgivings about the concept of cloud computing. We seek to dispel this uncertainty and to illustrate the substantial advantages of the cloud. This will require a few different approaches; alongside hard facts, only transparency can build trust in cloud services in the end. This is what we are working towards with our Cloud Security Services.