The cloud is mature and safe, leading CIO says

Cloud computing is both mature and far more secure than many critics would have you believe, according to one of the UK's leading IT professionals.

Michael Ibbitson is the chief information officer (CIO) for Gatwick Airport and he featured in the top half of the exclusive annual CIO 100 list, which charts the most successful, respected and transformational heads of IT in Britain. Speaking to CIO Magazine, Mr Ibbitson has offered his views on the cloud computing market as well as best practice advice for getting ahead with this technology.

The Gatwick CIO begins by pointing out: “Just as within any IT department you have maturity levels, with cloud vendors you also have maturity levels.” He is of the opinion that in the current, mature cloud market organisations have strong options when it comes to assessing the vendor they are going to go with.

Importantly, though, a business must thoroughly research potential vendors and know exactly what they are looking for.

Mr Ibbitson explained to CIO Magazine the kind of questions an IT leader should be asking: "Do they have secure data centres? Do they manage their access and controls properly, do they have ISO27000 certification? And, depending on the service, do they have payment card industry accreditation? Assess them and make sure you have the same risk mitigation steps that you would do for your on-premise services."

With security still the main barrier to the adoption of cloud services, asking these questions will help spot any potential pitfalls. From his own experiences, Mr Ibbitson said: "Suppliers must have the right security credentials - we have to know that if we are putting our data into their services that they know how to protect and manage that data."

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