As the saying goes, "When a very big elephant sits down in a room, you move out of the way; even if you are an elephant yourself!".

Next month, it is forecast that a global networking superstar Cisco, is going to bow down to the elephantine supremacy of Amazon. Cisco has confirmed that it is killing its $1 billion cloud project known as "Intercloud," What does this say about cloud projects? It is not just about scale, it is about super scale - $1 billion just will not cut it. 

So why are these big companies so Cloud obsessed? It has been predicted that by 2020, at least 35% of net-new IT spend in Europe will be Cloud-based, while non-Cloud enterprise applications spend will be flat.* The big companies are chasing their greatly needed future growth and Cloud real estate is valuable.

 What I am concerned about in the rush to the skies is that we do not forget about security. I worry that customers are  being swept up in the moment of everything Cloud and not asking simple questions around security, because they are expecting that the provider will just do this for them.

There is no substitute for vigilance and all businesses moving services into the Cloud should still be adopting strong authentication for Cloud applications and services.

The shift to Cloud computing is happening now. If you are thinking about it, or are in the process of doing it, please speak with a security specialist about your exposure and options.

2 Circles' Business IT Solutions offers a comprehensive range of security services and can provide advice to businesses of any size.

*Source: IDC 2017