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One solution many companies have turned to is cloud storage. Instead of storing data on-premises, businesses keep it with a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS. It may seem the ideal solution since most teams need their data on the go, and cloud solutions limit the need for IT infrastructure investments and maintenance costs.

However, before choosing your storage solution, it’s essential to consider the pros and cons of cloud storage and your actual business needs.

Analyzing the Pros and Cons of Cloud Storage

There’s no denying that cloud storage is convenient. The challenge is figuring out if cloud storage will provide the performance and security your business needs. Another consideration is whether your company will move 100% to the cloud or use a hybrid setup. Let’s consider a few pros and cons to help you decide which storage solution will satisfy your team’s requirements.

The Pros of Cloud Storage

• With physical infrastructure, you have to invest in hardware when you need to scale. These purchases can be costly, and they take time. Cloud storage allows you to scale up and down on-demand to keep your capacity aligned with your current business needs.
• Updated technology. It’s unlikely that your company updates its IT infrastructure very often. The competitive nature of cloud storage solutions forces providers to keep up with modern technology, giving you access to updated hardware without the costs.
• Storing your files in the cloud ensures that your people have access to important data wherever they have an internet connection. Accessibility is vital for teams with remote workforces and traveling sales people.
• Disaster recovery. Every business should have a plan for recovering its data when disaster strikes. A crucial part of these plans is an offsite location for storing data. Cloud storage is ideal for the job as it is often located in a completely separate region and providers have their own redundancies in place.

The Cons of Cloud Storage

• Security and privacy. Unless you host a private cloud, a third party will store your data. Their security policies and infrastructure will directly affect your complicity with regulatory and industry requirements. Additionally, some industries have more stringent rules for how you can store your data, like healthcare.
• Long-term costs. Depending on your storage needs, on-premise solutions can be cheaper in the long run. To understand the big picture, your procurement team needs to factor in hardware costs and upgrade frequency, bandwidth costs, and performance and accessibility requirements.
• Integration. Your systems may differ quite a bit from the data structure of some cloud providers, making integration difficult. You must make sure you have alignment beforehand to ensure a smooth transition.

Even though there are downsides to cloud storage, many solutions can be adapted to your needs — eliminating or mitigating these cons. For example, organizations that handle sensitive data can apply a hybrid approach to cloud storage. In this scenario, they may have a private storage infrastructure for data that isn’t uploaded to the cloud and use a cloud provider for other data needs. Additionally, many top-tier providers offer solutions that are compliant with strict industry regulations. How can you choose a storage solution for your company?

Tailor Data Storage to Your Needs

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for data storage. Some companies need ultra-low latency, others need scalability and accessibility, and yet others are just looking for a simple solution that can be implemented immediately. At OneNeck, help our clients implement cloud solutions that range from a fully private cloud to a fully public cloud, and hybrid options in between. 

Security and accessibility are crucial to getting the most out of your data. Our team can help you create a roadmap that prioritizes these qualities in your data storage solution. We’ll also analyze your business and technical requirements to ensure you have a final product tailored to your needs. Contact us to learn more.

The cybersecurity attack surface has grown exponentially over the last decade, and many organizations aren’t doing enough to prepare their teams to defend against cyber-attacks. The frequency and scope of these attacks have significantly increased across all industries, especially gaming. Why are casinos and gaming firms a prime target for cybercriminals? Because they are flush with cash and player data.

Recent Casino Gaming Breaches

One of the most famous breaches was in Las Vegas. The organization’s high-roller player tracking database was exfiltrated off the trusted network in 2018 through an IoT thermometer in a fish tank. More recently, in Oklahoma, six Lucky Star Casinos were hit with a ransomware attack just last summer. These cyber-attacks are putting the security of these organizations to the test, often leaving them unable to conduct daily operations until systems are restored, and data is recovered.

There are a few questions that every organization should answer regarding cyber defense.

• Are the proper controls in place to prevent an attack?
• How quickly can we detect an attack when it occurs? How do we respond?
• How quickly can we recover in the aftermath of an attack?

Preventing a cyber-attack is ideal; however, detecting an attack and providing an appropriate response is critical to thwarting a potential disaster. The IT recovery efforts, operational downtime, and reputation & brand damage will always cost more than a small investment upfront to improve your security posture.

Where to Start

A good starting point is to complete a health check of your system’s security posture and determine the current state of your environment. With this information, you can determine what you want your future state to look like and put a plan in place to address the most risk with the least effort. While a yearly assessment is a good first step, it is also crucial to be able to continuously report on Security Risks. Throughout normal IT and Security operations, the administration and configuration of those settings will drift over time. Staying on top of these changes will drive continuous improvement and compliance in your organization. Last but not least, and probably the most important thing you can do, is to protect all identities with MFA and ensure that the right user has access to the right resources for the right reasons and from the right place.

Invest in your cybersecurity program and reduce your risk of someone stealing your data or money and wreaking havoc within your network. The amount of money you spend preparing for an attack will be minimal compared to the brand damage, loss of customer trust, regulatory fines, and financial damage from not being able to operate your business and not to mention the cost to recover those affected systems.

Cybersecurity in Casino Gaming is a topic that we discuss every day. Feel free to check out some of what Solutions II does for our Gaming clients. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications (at the top of the page) to receive an email when new information is posted from our experts.