A Walk in the Cloud
Terms and Conditions To Consider
The most important terms to consider outside of SLAs and penalties associated with breach of contract are data backup, data privacy and data retention. Executives assume that their data is theirs alone, but many contracts don’t state this. Some cloud vendors want to reserve the right to analyze user data for their own purposes. This should be stricken from any contract. Providers should be allowed to access data only for the purpose of providing the customer with the service. Similarly, data encryption should be part of any service. Advanced cloud providers will offer encryption for data at rest and in transit.
If data is kept in the cloud, it must be backed up and archived. The policies associated with these actions should dovetail with the customer’s user recovery requirements. If this isn’t the case, executives must find a way to achieve their business needs. Data is the lifeblood of any organization. Should the data disappear, the company could vanish as well.
Data retention is another sore point. Executives must ensure the cloud provider’s data retention policy meets their business and compliance requirements. They also must ensure that once the contract is terminated, all corporate data is deleted or destroyed. This is not typically the case. Some vendors have been known to use customer data for their purposes after the contract expires. It’s the executive’s responsibility to ensure that the data remains the property of the company and not the cloud vendor.
Summary
There’s been considerable hype surrounding cloud computing. But oftentimes the reality fails to manage the hype. Executives simply cannot afford to shrug their fiduciary responsibilities when it comes to cloud contracts and commitments. It’s critical to ensure that a cloud contract delivers on the business SLAs and offers acceptable terms. Executives should work with their legal counsel in negotiating contract SLAs and terms and conditions. All angles and possibilities should be explored to ensure the risk exposure is minimized and the cloud experience becomes a positive one.
Other articles by Cal:
Small Business Can Get High Availability From IT
Leasing Contracts: Not All Are Equal
15 Reasons it Makes Sense for IT to Lease
Cal Braunstein is lead analyst at Robert Frances Group, which provides advisory, consulting and research services to senior executives in IT and LOB management as well as for marketing/sales management for companies that provide IT and communications services and products.
