Earlier this month, CGI was featured in a special advertising section of Forbes: “High-Level Security: The new Cloud Computing Age offers companies a tailored approach to protecting and monitoring data.” The article discusses how concerns of cloud security typically “boil down to questions about competency, transparency and access.” These are similar to the concerns I cited hearing about during the Gartner Symposium.

Within the Forbes piece, Jim Reavis with the Cloud Security Alliance said that “Professionally managed clouds actually do a better job of security than most organizations can do on their own.” This certainly is the message we tell our clients. As an IT veteran with 35 years of experience, we understand and deliver what we call enterprise-strength security, which includes superior controls and production environments that are pre-tested and certified.

To combat your cloud security concerns, seek a cloud services company that offers a proactive approach—one known as operationalized security. Components of this approach include:

• Continuous monitoring, reporting and improvement
• Real-time security mindset
• Track record of performance in designing and implementing operationalized security
• Greater redundancy, disaster recovery and system availability
• Physical separation of software from commercial clouds

It’s also important to understand your own security challenges and to assess organizational needs. This will enable you to seek the right type of provider that can adequately address your concerns.