Europe Reaches for the Cloud, So Long as It's Private

In the United States, our EPA is the Environmental Protection Agency. In Europe, it stands for the European Privacy Association. The group met recently in Barcelona and gave potential cloud users an earful.

First, the group is hugely bullish on the cloud, believing that if done right, cloud computing could have a huge impact on the European Union, saving member states up to $600 million euros over the next five years. But the EPA is very worried about the privacy of all that data floating about in the cloud. Heck, look how easy it is for hackers to steal data behind all our firewalls and IPS and IDS systems. Now imagine this same information floating about in the ether. A bit scary, mate!

But here's where efficiencies of scale come in, the EPA argues. Not every IT shop has the best security -- it's hard to build and maintain. Cloud providers, though...well, their whole business should be about selling secure data services, and one comprehensive security plan could be applied to thousands of enterprises.

I've got mixed feelings, but I have to believe the cloud companies will get it right far more often than they get it wrong. Are you as hopeful as I am? Pessimists and optimists are both invited to weigh in at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/2011 at 12:47 PM