Cloud risks

Risks can also be associated with complexity and errors in planning and implementation of the solution.

When moving to the cloud, customers may find that clouds are not always better than an in-house architecture in financial terms. In this case, the cost of the solution was misestimated. Vendors can change their pricing policy. In this case customers can transfer their work cloud to another vendor.


Sometimes vendors speak about availability of certain components of architecture but the customer needs more. And it is found out only when the solution is already in operation, if, for example, a too long system response is observed. Other difficulties arise when working with hybrid configurations, as part of the data is in the cloud and another part is at the customer’s servers. Linking all this together can be a tall task. Most often these issues are resolved through an incremental and orderly transition that moves non-business-critical data first. If everything goes well, a larger transition is possible.

The second type of risks can be attributed to the Russian specifics. First of all, these are additional risks associated with the Federal Law on Personal Data (FZ-152), which proclaims that companies should understand exactly what data will be sent to the cloud and processed there and select the cloud provider accordingly. But several market players are already certified by the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control. So at the moment there seem to be no serious extra risks which can prevent companies from the use of public clouds.

Author: Timur Kaidanny, Head of Consulting Department for Data Center Infrastructure at ICL Services