I said it might happen and it is; public cloud computing is having a very real and very negative impact on what would otherwise be a very good year for the cloud computing and managed services professions.
Some time ago, I wrote that managed service providers should use the marketing cache of cloud computing to their advantage. I also said that MSPs should be careful about becoming too aligned with cloud computing because the public cloud vendors might tarnish the reputation of MSPs. Specifically, I was writing about public cloud outages harming MSPs. I never would have envisioned something as widespread and damaging as the U.S. government surveillance program called PRISM. However, the public relations debacle surrounding the PRISM program has now entered a very real dimension.
Today, the Financial Times reported that PRISM issue may cost the US public cloud industry up to $35 billion dollars over a three year period. The report, based on a study by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, said that 10% of non-U.S. respondents had canceled a project with a U.S.-based cloud computing provider while 56% said that they would be less likely to use a U.S.-based cloud computing service.
While this study appears to be specific to public cloud and may have an opposite impact for private cloud projects, it is nevertheless a distraction that must be deal with in order to bring legitimacy and calm back into the cloud computing sector. The perception that public clouds are not secure must be countered and the best and likely only response is the security and privacy only private cloud can bring. MSPs who hope to deliver cloud services via the public cloud sector may want to rethink their strategy. At the very least, public cloud for anything other than non-sensitive data will likely not be a good idea for the majority of customers.
Turn Public Cloud Disaster Into a Positive
There are methods that can be employed by MSPs to turn this public debate into a positive.
- Consult with customers about the differences between public and private cloud
- Work with customers about which type of data is most important to them
- Create strategy for how public and private cloud computing can play a role for both sensitive and non-sensitive types of data
The future is uncertain when it comes to public cloud and it is impossible to predict if the outcry against government surveillance of public cloud will increase. What is known is that MSPs can and should play an important role in advising their customers about how best to protect their data.
