How Much Do You Know About Clouds?Cloud computing in many forms has become a major part of the landscape for securities operations as providers have met end-user requirements for better security and reliability. Cloud versions of existing IT systems, managed services and applications running against a cloud are in wide usage while some firms are exploring systems that start out as cloud-based. This panel will provide an update on the spread of cloud computing and a look to the future.• What are the best practices for cloud computing?• What are the cybersecurity protections for cloud-based systems?• What are the staffing implications from moving to the cloud?• How are providers handling the client demands for faster data transfer issues?

James P. O’Shea IIIhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesposhea3/

You’ve been using cloud-like services for much of your life• You don’t own the assets, but you consume the services

Dynamically choose the capacity to match your demand: serve 1 user, 50, 500,…

If your need for speed or performance increases, you can pick a faster version of the cloud service• Your choice for one workload/trip does not constrain your choice for the next trip/workload• When you’re done, you pay the fare and walk away.

On the other hand, if you choose on-premise technology, you will be responsible to • keep it current• build a big enough facility to service it (even if it must be custom-built)• carry the assets on your own balance sheet

Goldilocks is just a fairy tale when managing on-premise capacity• You will likely have too much or too little; impossible to be ‘just right’ because of procurement timelines

When it comes to security, you need to understand where your threats are and select controls to mitigate them• Some control choices are simple, as are some threat models

Other threats are less obvious, like line drives; cloud based security requires being explicit about what should be allowed (whitelisting). Take advantage of new tools and automation to monitor control effectiveness.

What are the best practices for cloud computing?• Recognize the similarities between ‘cloud’ risks and risks you already know how to manage

What are the cybersecurity protections for cloud-based systems?• Most mature cloud providers offer considerably more native and embedded controls in their

service than you have in a traditional on-premise private data center

What are the staffing implications from moving to the cloud?• Application development techniques will need to change to take advantage of templated

infrastructure-as-code.• Horizontal scaling replaces ‘buy a bigger box’• Infrastructure-as-code replaces ‘build me a server, configure me a load balancer’• Consistency and automation become more important than ever

How are providers handling the client demands for faster data transfer issues?• Some cloud providers are offering large offline bulk load capabilities, after which you can move

incremental changes over the network

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