Public Computing Clouds Could Be More Secure Than Private Ones

At the top of the list of corporate concerns about cloud computing is security.

But before long companies debating whether to migrate their applications into the hosted cloud may find public networks are safer than their own.

Most public clouds are run in a more secure manner than the networks enterprises maintain on their own, says Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos.

Not all private companies maintain the same discipline, he said Thursday at the Structure 09 conference in San Francisco.

Cloud computing is among the most talked about trends in modern computing – especially today when its promise of lower costs turns heads in corporate suites. Many IT managers are said to be looking closely at moving applications into hosted clouds as they seek to free up technology budgets for new projects and as they hope to add flexibility to their computing infrastructures.

But the most significant drawback is security. Companies rightly fear that their important customer data could be compromised or stolen if it hosted in a public network.

During a panel discussion at the conference, Papadopoulos turned that thinking on its ear. The incentive for an employee at a public data center to rifle a company’s data is arguably less than an employee at the company itself, who knows its value, he said.

It could end up that public centers are the more compliant places to be, he said.

Papadoploulos’ thinking could be right. But it will take time for enterprise customers to swallow this counter-intuitive pill.