Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016.  Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Mike Pagani, Senior Director of Product Marketing and Chief Evangelist, Smarsh

Cloud Solutions Will Be Adopted More Frequently In Regulated Industries

Next year, organizations in highly regulated industries will increase their use of cloud solutions to support and complement their existing technology infrastructure.

Although most Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are keenly aware of the benefits of the cloud, companies in highly regulated industries (financial services, lending and mortgage, and public sector, etc.) have lagged behind in its adoption. That's because highly regulated industries need to meet more stringent requirements surrounding:

• Information governance
• Records retention, management and preservation requirements
• Security
• Privacy
• Reliability and availability of information
  

However, traditional planning, developing and deploying of on-premise systems are often slow. Regulated industries now face the pressure to act quickly in response to new regulations, ideas, and rapid market developments. CIOs in regulated organizations know the cloud can provide more agile capabilities, quickly, and this is the year they will implement more cloud solutions than ever before.

A Tipping Point Has Been Reached

At Smarsh, we believe that cloud computing has reached the tipping point where it provides a number of critical capabilities for regulated industries, and can enable innovation within organizations-while meeting stringent industry requirements. In most cases, the cloud can provide:

• Better cost structure. Cost is now a major motivator within regulated companies that want to move to cloud computing. It's becoming significantly more economical to pursue a cloud strategy than traditional plans for infrastructure, platform and software.
• The same or better security capabilities compared to traditional in-house infrastructure, networks or applications. In general, cloud providers have the resources, abilities and motivation to do a much better job at security than an organization can with its own on-premise solution that's managed in-house. Cloud security benefits are particularly pronounced for small-to-medium organizations; they can take advantage of the skills and security practices of cloud providers rather than investing in and managing their own in-house hardware, software, and IT staff. Funds saved can then be used to educate employees on policies, and enforce procedures and security on an ongoing basis.
• Better workflow and case management. Cloud providers have the ability to easily and more frequently roll out new or advanced feature sets automatically. IT is usually involved with these roll outs, but legacy on-premise systems are much more reliant on IT to install and update changes. Cloud providers help lift that burden from IT staff.
  

Ultimately, CIOs in regulated companies want a flexible infrastructure, lower costs, and the ability to lean on a cloud provider's IT expertise. For each cloud solution and provider, the essentials will still need to be evaluated-including physical security controls, internal controls and oversight, emergency response processes, authorization procedures, authentication procedures, identity management, privacy, security, and so on. Consideration should also be given to whether a public, private or hybrid cloud setup is the right one for a specific organization/industry.

2016 will be a transformative time for IT infrastructure in regulated industries, with many organizations looking to tip the balance of their IT investments to cloud solutions.

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About the Author

Mike Pagani is a seasoned IT professional and recognized subject matter expert in the areas of mobility, identity and access management, network security and virtualization. Prior to joining Smarsh in November 2014, Pagani held executive-level corporate and technology leadership/spokesperson roles for Stay-Linked, Quest Software, NComputing, Dell Software and others.