Modern Computing

So what's the big deal about cloud computing and security issues (perceived or otherwise) around BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)?

Firstly let's get one thing out of the way: Cloud computing is really just computing these days. All of us use some form of cloud, whether for productivity tools such as Google Apps or Office 365, for backups and storage such as Dropbox and SkyDrive, for entertainment such as YouTube and Netflix, or maybe you have a full private cloud solution for your business applications and data management. All of us use 'the cloud'. If there is anybody out there not using the cloud at all, I'd be interested to hear about it in the comments.

So I'm just going to call it Modern Computing. The thing with Modern Computing, is that we want to access our applications, personal data and public information at any time, from any place using any device. In the past if you wanted to access a file from the office, you had to be in the office using a PC or laptop owned and managed by the company. While the IT department loved this because they could manage access end to end, it really doesn't fit with Modern Computing.

So all of your data and all of your applications are somewhere else. There are real and perceived security concerns around this, of course.You need to be sure your data has adequate protection from hacking, leakage and loss, for example. But this isn't really as big an issue as it seems. You choose your cloud provider based on your specific requirements - of which security is a priority - and then you trust them to do their job. After all, they will make every effort to keep your data safe, or suffer a very public embarrassment which would lose them business. It is in their very best interests to keep your data safe.

Which brings us to BYOD - Bring Your Own Device. While not an entirely new phenomenon, the act of end users using their own devices at work - smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc - is gathering pace these days. The reason? Simple. Users are purchasing the likes of the iPad for personal use and just finding it easier to manage their day to day activities on it than on a clunky old desktop PC that ties then to the office between 9 and 5 every day. Initially IT hated this idea because they no longer had control of those end user devices and became scared of security issues - mostly data loss because of deliberate or accidental removal of data. But more and more now, IT is embracing BYOD because data is kept in the cloud and accessed directly from it (meaning less chance of leakage) and because now they can spend their budgets on other things than PCs and laptops, and spend their time more productively than purchasing, configuring and delivering PCs and laptops to each desk.

According to a recent Gartner report, half of employers will require employees to supply their own device by 2017.

Modern Computing means everything we do and by definition includes the devices we use to do it. That means that while BYOD is a big buzz-word at the moment, the term will most likely disappear over the coming months and years. So while people are enjoying being able to use their own devices for work purposes at the moment, get used to that becoming the norm.