Michael Osterman

While on-premises security solutions can provide robust defenses against spam, malware and other security threats, cloud-based security—used either as a standalone solution or in conjunction with on-premise defenses—offers a number of inherent advantages:

• Most threats never hit the on-premises network—The use of a cloud service for spam processing, for example, eliminates the majority of content processing, storage and bandwidth associated with spam before it ever reaches the customer’s network, making the on-premise infrastructure more efficient. More critically, the bulk of malware can be eradicated before it ever reaches the corporate network, leaving on-premise solutions—if they are in place—to act as another layer of protection against these threats.
• More efficient use of IT resources—One of the key issues that should be considered by any organization—but one that often is not—is the opportunity cost of IT staff members. Most CIOs and IT managers would agree that finding and retaining highly qualified IT staff is not an easy task. As a result, in-house IT staff should be used so that they can provide maximum efficiency to their employer, while also giving them a satisfying work experience that will motivate them not to move elsewhere. A cloud security solution—whether used for messaging security, Web security or other capabilities—allows IT staff members to move on from managing security servers and appliances and to work on projects that provide more differential value to the organization and that can result in greater job satisfaction.
• Easier support for mobile and remote users - Given that a growing proportion of the working population is mobile—either because of corporate telework initiatives or employees who travel as part of their work—security for these employees can be difficult to manage using on-premise systems. Cloud security capabilities can provide a high level of protection for these employees, many of whom use Wi-Fi hotspots and other resources that are much less secure than their in-office counterparts.
• Extending the life of on-premises solutions—Related to the point above is that cloud services allow an organization to extend the useful life of an in-house security solution. For example, if a company has reached the maximum capacity of its email filtering appliances, it could implement a cloud-based spam filtering service that would dramatically reduce the amount of incoming traffic and thereby allow new investments in internal hardware to be postponed or avoided altogether.
• Improved disaster recovery and business continuity—Another important advantage of cloud solutions is that they can provide a very useful backup messaging solution in the event of an outage of the primary messaging system. For example, most cloud security providers will spool incoming email for at least several days (much longer in some cases) if it cannot be delivered to a customer’s server. This prevents an email server outage from causing bouncebacks to senders and ensures that incoming email is still being processed.

We have just published a white paper on this topic that you can download here.