A Guide to Cloud Success

In the modern, digital-centric business environment, cloud hosting has become a critical part of modern business strategy. Many businesses have sought to embrace cloud hosting thanks to its affordability and convenience when compared to other solutions, such as on-prem hosting.

For businesses looking to streamline their operations, reduce costs and gain a crucial competitive edge, your choice of hosting solution will have a major bearing on this. This is why choosing a hosting environment requires careful consideration before you commit to any particular model.

In this guide, we’ll look in closer detail at hosting options and discuss the most important things you need to know when choosing a solution, including the options available to you, and exploring what you need to do to ensure that your chosen hosting solution works for your business and its customers.

Contents

• Types of Hosting
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Data Backup and Recovery
• Data Security
• Authentication and Authorisation
• Data Compliance and Safety

Types of Hosting

Choosing the right hosting environment is a critical decision for any business or organisation looking to deploy and manage apps, store data or simply maintain an online presence. The type of hosting you select will depend on a number of factors, including scalability, security and cost-effectiveness.

In this section, we’ll look at the hosting options available to your business, weighing up the pros and cons of each and helping you to understand their advantages and limitations.

On-premises hosting

On-premises hosting involves housing your servers and IT infrastructure within your own facilities. This traditional approach gives you complete control over your hardware, software and data, making it a preferred choice among organisations that require full ownership of their IT environment.

With on-prem hosting, you have complete control over your infrastructure, from hardware selection to software configurations and security protocols. This enables you to tailor your hosting to your specific requirements, and gives you direct oversight of security measures.

It is worth noting that on-prem can be especially helpful in environments such as high-volume manufacturing, where network latency can impact production equipment and defence where security is critical. On-premise solutions may therefore be better suited for businesses with critical low-latency needs, such as those with fast-moving supply chains as well as high-volume manufacturing.

However, on-prem hosting is expensive as it requires a significant upfront cost in hardware, software and the physical space needed to host the infrastructure. It can also be resource-intensive, as your IT team is responsible for all maintenance, upgrades and troubleshooting, and scaling can be challenging as it requires additional hardware and space.

Public cloud

Public cloud hosting involves using a third-party cloud provider’s infrastructure to host your applications and data. Resources such as servers, storage and networking are shared among multiple users, providing flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency.

Because public cloud can be scaled up or down quickly, it’s good for growing businesses or those with fluctuating workloads. You only pay for the resources you use, making it cost-effective, and it’s easy to use, with a wide range of tools and services.

But while public clouds are secure, some organisations worry about the risks associated with multi-tenancy arrangements. Also, as the underlying infrastructure is supplied by a cloud provider, options for customisation may be limited. Public cloud may also not be suited to organisations operating in some highly regulated industries.

Private cloud

Private cloud hosting offers the benefits of public cloud – including scalability and flexibility – within a dedicated environment reserved for your organisation. It can be hosted on-premises, in a shared data centre or by a third-party provider, and typically offers greater control and isolation than public clouds.

Because private clouds offer enhanced control over data security and compliance, they may be more suitable for sensitive workloads. They can also be tailored to your organisation’s particular needs, including custom configurations and specialised software, and can offer more consistent and predictable performance.

However, private cloud tends to be more expensive than public cloud due to the need for dedicated infrastructure and management, and the complexity involved in managing it. In terms of scalability, private clouds may also be more limited than public clouds, which are virtually limitless.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud hosting combines on-prem infrastructure with public and/or private cloud resources, offering a flexible and balanced approach. This allows organisations to keep sensitive data on-premises, while leveraging the scalability and cost-efficiency of the cloud for less critical data.

Using the cloud for less sensitive workloads and private cloud for more sensitive data helps businesses to optimise their costs. Hybrid clouds also enable better disaster recovery options by  allowing data to be backed up and stored in the cloud while keeping primary operations on-prem. Keeping key data and systems elements on-premise within a hybrid model also allows the key benefit of lower latency to be achieved, helping with scenarios such as computer controlled manufacturing.

Managing a hybrid environment, however, can be complex and resource intensive. Integrating multiple environments can also lead to security vulnerabilities if not managed properly, while ensuring that on-prem and cloud systems work seamlessly may also be challenging.

Vendor cloud

Vendor-specific cloud hosting refers to using a cloud environment provided by a particular vendor, such as IFS; providers of cloud infrastructure, typically public cloud, also include SAP, Oracle and Azure. These platforms offer a wide range of services and tools, often tailored to specific industries or use cases.

One of the big benefits of vendor cloud is that it offers a wide array of integrated services, including AI, machine learning and big data analytics. It offers robustness and reliability, along with comprehensive support and resources from providers.

However, being locked in with a single vendor may make it more costly to switch providers in the future. Also, cloud pricing can be complex, varying according to usage, services and regions, and vendor clouds may also offer less customisation than private or hybrid cloud options.

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Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

When choosing a hosting provider, your Service Level Agreement (SLA) is vitally important. This defines the expected level of service between you and your provider, outlining key performance indicators and guarantees, thus ensuring that you know what you should expect in terms of service quality, availability and technical support.

Here are the key points to consider when negotiating and reviewing SLAs.

Uptime guarantee

The uptime guarantee is one of the most crucial aspects of an SLA. It specifies the percentage of time that your hosting service should be available and operational. This is typically expressed as a percentage, with many providers offering guarantees of 99.9% uptime or greater.

Your SLA should clearly define what counts as uptime and downtime. Some SLAs may exclude maintenance or force majeure­ events – that is, “acts of God” – from their downtime calculations, so this is something to bear in mind.

In addition, SLAs should also lay out the penalties for any breaches where the provider fails to meet the uptime guarantee, as well as clarifying how uptime is monitored and reported.

Performance standards

In an SLA, performance standards are defined as the expected levels of speed, responsiveness and overall performance of the hosting service. These metrics are essential for ensuring a positive user experience and the smooth operation of applications.

The SLA should specify acceptable response times for different types of requests, such as page load speeds, database queries and API responses. It should provide guarantees regarding allocation of resources (CPU, RAM and bandwidth) to ensure consistent performance.

Also, if your organisation experiences fluctuating traffic, you should ensure that the SLA covers performance during peak times, including automatic scaling capabilities.

Support and response times

The level of support provided by your hosting provider is a central consideration, especially when dealing with unexpected issues or emergencies. SLAs should therefore outline the provider’s obligations regarding support availability and response times.

Verify the hours of support availability, whether it’s 24-7, business hours only, or limited to certain days. Ensure that your SLA specifies maximum response times for specific issues, categorised by severity (e.g. low, medium, high and critical).

Your SLA should include clear escalation procedures for unresolved issues, including timelines and contact points for escalating to higher levels of support.

Data security and compliance

Data security and compliance are of paramount importance, especially for businesses dealing with sensitive information. Your SLA should, therefore, address how your hosting provider will protect your data and ensure compliance with relevant regulations such as GDPR.

In particular, the SLA should detail the security protocols in place, such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection systems and regular security audits. Ensure that your provider complies with industry-specific regulations such as GDPR, and that your SLA includes commitments to maintain compliance.

Look for guarantees around data backup frequency, retention periods and the time required to restore data in the event of a loss.

Disaster recovery

Unexpected disasters can strike any business at any time. Disaster recovery is therefore essential to maintain business continuity as much as possible in the event of a major system failure. The SLA should specify your provider’s commitments in this area.

This should include, for instance, your recovery time objective or RTO; this is the maximum acceptable downtime before service is restored. Also, your SLA should specify your recovery point objective (RTO), which is the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time.

Also, ensure your provider has documented disaster recovery procedures and that these are documented in the SLA. This plan should cover various scenarios, including cyberattacks, hardware failures and natural disasters.

Termination conditions and service credits

Your SLA should clearly outline the conditions under which either party can exit the agreement, as well as the process for transitioning services away from the existing provider. This includes termination clauses, notice period and provisions for data migration or handover.

Service credits are a common form of compensation where providers fail to meet SLA commitments. Your SLA should detail how and when these credits apply, as well as any penalties for repeated failures.

Data Backup and Recovery

Ensuring the safety and integrity of data is essential. Data backup and recovery are therefore central components of any robust hosting strategy, providing protection against data loss, corruption and disasters.

Whether due to human error, software failure, hardware failure, cyberattack or natural disasters, data loss can have serious ramifications for any organisation. A well-planned backup and recovery strategy ensures that your data is securely stored and can be quickly restored in the event of an incident.

Backups and disaster recovery are often seen to go hand in hand, and it is important to keep these two elements fully covered. As an example, if your ERP platform is processing a large number of transactions (e.g. for a lot of consumer-facing businesses) then having a good disaster recovery approach can mean that your downtime is almost zero (by effectively mirroring every transaction to a disaster recovery infrastructure which is ready to go automatically).

Here are the key considerations to bear in mind when choosing a hosting solution.

Backup frequency

The frequency of data backups determines how often your data is separately and securely saved, and it is vitally important in minimising data loss. Regular backups ensure that your most recent data is preserved, thereby reducing the risk of losing important information.

Determine the appropriate backup strategy based on the nature of your business and the frequency of data changes. High-transaction environments may require hourly backups, while other organisations may only need daily or even weekly backups.

Data retention policies

Data retention policies define how long backups are kept before being deleted or archived. Retention policies are crucial for balancing storage costs with the need to access historical data. Decide how long backups should be kept based on business needs, regulatory requirements and storage capacity.

Some industries may need data to be retained for several years, while for others backups may only need to be kept for a few months. For long-term storage of critical data, consider archiving older backups so that data can be stored securely and accessed when it’s needed.

Offsite and cloud backups

Storing backups in multiple locations can protect against data loss due to site-specific incidents such as fire, flooding and theft. Offsite and cloud backups provide an additional layer of security by archiving your data in diverse locations.

Offsite backups protect against local disasters and ensure that data can be restored even if the primary site is compromised. Cloud-based backups offer scalable and cost-effective storage solutions with the added benefit of providing easy access and recovery from anywhere.

Testing and validation

Regular testing and validation of your backup and recovery procedures are essential to ensure that they work as intended when you need them to. Without proper testing, you risk learning of flaws in your recovery plan only when a disaster strikes – at which point it’s too late.

Schedule regular tests of your backup and recovery procedures, simulating different disaster scenarios. Validate that backups are complete, free of corruption and stored in the correct locations. Continuously review backup and recovery plans to account for changes in your IT environment.

Data security during backup and recovery

Ensuring that your backups are secure from cybersecurity threats and unauthorised access is as important as protecting your live data. This is why data security is paramount during both the backup and recovery processes.

Ensure that all data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. Implement strict access controls to limit personnel who can initiate backups, access recovery data and perform recovery operations. Finally, verify that your backup processes meet all regulatory requirements, such as GDPR.

Data Security

In a world where cybersecurity threats are continually proliferating and growing in sophistication, data security has never been more important. Protecting information from unauthorised access, theft or breaches is critical to maintaining the trust of both customers and regulators.

A comprehensive approach to data security involves implementing multiple layers of protection across every aspect of your IT infrastructure, from physical security measures to cybersecurity protocols. Here, we’ll look at the most important steps to keep your hosting solution secure.

Encryption

Encryption is a fundamental component of data security, ensuring that sensitive information is encoded in such a way that it can only be accessed by authorised parties. By encrypting data both at rest (when stored) and in transit (when being transferred), you can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorised access.

Make sure that all data stored on databases, servers and backup media is encrypted using strong encryption algorithms. This prevents data from being readable in case of physical theft or unauthorised access to storage devices.

Use encryption protocols such as SSL/TLS for web traffic to protect data as it travels across networks (and make sure the latest versions of these are used). Also, implement robust encryption key management practices, including secure generation, storage and, importantly, rotation of keys.

Firewalls and intrusion detection systems

Firewalls and intrusion detection systems form the first line of defence against cyberattacks and attempts to gain unauthorised access. These tools help monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.

Firewalls to create a barrier between your internal network and external threats, ensuring that they are configured to allow only necessary traffic while blocking potentially harmful connections. Use intrusion detection systems to monitor network traffic for suspicious activities or known threats; they will provide alerts allowing for a quicker response to potential breaches.

You should also think about introducing intrusion prevention systems, as these can not only detect but actively prevent or block identified threats in real time.

Security audits and vulnerability assessments

Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments are critical for identifying and addressing potential weaknesses in your IT infrastructure. In this way, they help you stay ahead of emerging threats and ensure that your security measures are up to date.

Audits also help with industry standards and regulations, reducing the risk of compliance failures, and can identify gaps in your security posture before they become a serious problem. Vulnerability assessments, meanwhile, can also help proactively address security failures before they can be exploited by malicious actors.

You should also consider conducting periodic penetration tests, which involve security experts simulating attacks on your system to test your defences and identify vulnerabilities. Pen testing provides valuable insights into how well your security measures hold up against threats.

Incident response and breach management

Even with the best security measures in place, breaches can still happen. An effective incident response plan puts your organisation in a much better position to respond expeditiously and effectively to security incidents, minimising the damage and ensuring a quicker recovery.

A comprehensive incident response plan should outline the steps to take in the event of a security breach; you can develop this with your chosen hosting provider if you’re going down the third-party route. This incident response plan should specify roles and responsibilities, communication protocols, and procedures for containment, eradication and recovery.

There should also be systems for early detection of breaches, such as monitoring tools, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and security information and event management (SIEM) systems. After any security breach, a thorough post-incident review to ensure that lessons are learned and improvements implemented is critical.

Authentication and Authorisation

Controlling who can access your systems – and what they can do once they’re inside them – is essential to maintaining the security of your chosen hosting solution. Authentication and authorisation are the twin pillars of access control, ensuring that only verified users can access resources, and that they have the appropriate permissions commensurate with their roles.

By implementing robust authentication and authorisation controls, you can protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorised access and reduce the risk of insider threats. This section explores the key concepts and best practices for authentication and authorisation.

Authentication explained

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, device or application before granting access to a system. It is the first line of defence in your security architecture, ensuring that only legitimate entities can enter your network or systems.

Commonly used methods of authentication include:

• Password management: Strong and unique passwords are the foundation of effective authentication. Encourage or enforce the use of hard to guess passwords, and avoid common passwords across different accounts. Experts now advise using a sentence as a password and never changing it; otherwise, there is a risk that users will just add a number to the end of their original password whenever they are prompted to create a new one, thereby lowering the level of security over time.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to two or more verification factors before gaining access. These verification factors include passwords, phones or tokens, and biometrics. Implementing MFA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorised access, even if passwords are compromised.
• Single sign-on (SSO): SSO allows users to authenticate and gain access to multiple applications or systems. This not only enhances the user experience, but also reduces the number of attack vectors by minimising the number of passwords users need to manage. Most modern business software solutions support the use of SSO (typically with MFA enabled on it as well).
• Biometric authentication: Using biometric data such as fingerprints, facial recognition or iris scans can provide a high level of security, as these are very difficult to replicate or steal. Biometric authentication is therefore especially useful for sensitive systems or environments requiring a higher security level.

It should be noted here that using MFA and SSO together leverages the strong points of both to bolster security and ensure ease of use. This way, users can benefit from the simplicity of SSO when accessing multiple systems or applications, while MFA ensures that the login process remains secure – thereby minimising the risk of unauthorised access.

Authorisation explained

Authorisation comes after identification, determining what an authenticated user is permitted to do. Specifically, it involves defining and enforcing permissions based on user roles, ensuring that users have access only to the data and systems they need to access in order to do their job.

Commonly used elements of authorisation include:

• Role-based access control (RBAC): RBAC assigns permissions to users based on their roles within an organisation. This ensures that users can only access the resources they need to perform their allotted duties and tasks.
• Attribute-based access control (ABAC): ABAC goes beyond roles by considering additional attributes, such as user location, time of access and the type of device used. ABAC allows for more granular and context-aware access control, enhancing security in complex environments.
• Least privilege principle: The principle of least privilege grants users access only to what they need in order to do their jobs. You should regularly review and adjust permissions so that they remain aligned with users’ roles and responsibilities.
• Access control lists (ACLs): ACLs are used to define permissions for specific resources, including files, directories and network devices. This allows administrators to specify which users can access particular resources and what actions they can perform (e.g. read, write and execute).

Data Compliance and Safety

Today, businesses often have little alternative but to rely on digital platforms and cloud-based services. The importance of data compliance and safety, therefore, must be emphasised at all times. This must be a central consideration when deciding on a hosting strategy for your organisation.

In this section, we delve deeper into the critical components of data compliance and safety, explaining how they relate to different hosting models and the broader objective of keeping sensitive information out of the wrong hands.

Understanding your regulatory responsibilities

Businesses and other organisations are subject to a welter of regulations with regard to data protection. These regulations will vary by industry, region and the type of data being processed, and it’s an absolute must that you understand the regulations to which your organisation is subject.

Regulations such as the European Union’s GDPR – which applies to all businesses doing business in the single market – impose stringent rules on how data is to be collected, stored and processed, with serious penalties for non-compliance.

Your choice of hosting model – on-prem, public cloud, private cloud or hybrid – will affect how your compliance responsibilities are met. For instance, on-prem hosting gives you greater control but also places the full compliance burden on your organisation.

Vendor management and third-party compliance

When outsourcing hosting services to third-party vendors such as cloud hosting providers, you must ensure that these vendors meet your compliance and data safety requirements. Vendor management involves assessing and monitoring third-party compliance with applicable regulations and security standards.

Conduct thorough due diligence when choosing a hosting vendor. Ensure that they have the necessary certifications, such as ISO27001 for information security management and SOC 2 for service organisation controls. Do not enter into a contract unless you’re satisfied about this.

Under the shared responsibility model in cloud hosting, both the provider and the customer share responsibilities for data security and compliance. Each party’s responsibilities – including who manages what – must be clearly delineated so that everyone knows what’s expected of them.

Data compliance and safety in different hosting models

The hosting model you choose has significant implications for data compliance and safety. Whether you’re using on-prem, public cloud, private cloud or a hybrid model, each has its unique advantages and challenges. It’s important to understand what these are before committing to anything.

Here are some key points to bear in mind about different hosting models with regard to data compliance and safety:

• On-premises hosting: On-prem solutions offer the highest level of control over data and compliance, but they also require significant resources and expertise to manage security, updates and compliance effectively.
• Public cloud: Public cloud hosting provides scalable and cost-effective solutions, with many cloud providers offering built-in compliance tools. However, you must carefully manage data safety within the shared environment and ascertain whether your cloud provider meets the necessary regulatory requirements.
• Private cloud: Private cloud hosting solutions combine the control of on-prem with the scalability of the cloud, making them ideal for organisations with stringent compliance needs, offering greater customisation and security but at a higher level of complexity – and hence also at a higher cost.
• Hybrid cloud: Hybrid cloud offers flexibility by combining different hosting models, allowing businesses to choose where to store different types of data based on compliance and safety requirements. While managing compliance across multiple environments can be challenging, hybrid cloud provides the benefit of optimising for both security and efficiency.

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Finding a hosting solution that works for your organisation requires a deep understanding of the various options available and a strategic approach to managing key aspects such as data security, compliance and disaster recovery. Choosing the right hosting model and provider are critical in safeguarding your organisation’s data while ensuring its efficient functioning.

Ultimately, the goal of your hosting strategy is to provide a secure, reliable and compliant environment for your applications and data. By staying informed, continuously evaluating your practices and adapting to emerging threats and new regulations, your business can achieve hosting success, laying a strong foundation for its future growth and long-term prosperity.

At Muzulu, our industry-leading IFS consultancy empowers businesses across a range of industries to face the future with real confidence. To discuss adopting a new IFS ERP solution or upgrading your existing IFS ERP, simply visit our website to book a call with a member of Muzulu’s expert team.