Last week I ranted a bit about the importance of governing your cloud vendors.  At about the same time, Ipswitch’s Frank Kenney participated in a panel discussion on cloud security at the Interop conference in Las Vegas.

As you know, there is great debate over whether cloud services are secure enough for businesses to use.  I believe that the cloud model will quickly evolve and prove itself to a point where security is deemed no riskier than doing business with solely on-premises tools.

I also believe that member-driven organizations such as the Cloud Security Alliance – which focus on providing security assurance within Cloud Computing – will help us get there.

At the Interop discussion, Frank Kenney spoke about the safety of the cloud, here’s what he had to say:

“Cloud customers have the obligation to assess the risk of allowing data to be stored in a cloud based on how valuable it is to the customers…. The cloud is as secure as you want it to be.

Cloud services can provide value if performance and service-level agreements align with what customers need.  If not, customers shouldn’t buy them.  It’s not ‘the sky is falling’.  Assign risks appropriately.  Security is just one of many things you have to do.”