Governing the Cloud

Moving to the cloud offers many benefits to insurers—elasticity, scalability, increased stability, and rapid deployment capabilities. Each of the top cloud providers support an array of platforms in their marketplaces. These PaaS can expand infrastructure capabilities, offer developer tools, and provide access to emerging technologies like machine learning. The breadth of platforms means there are use cases for all areas of the enterprise. And this is where the problem lies.

Insurers that lack a cloud governance model are likely to develop a Shadow IT environment. Good-intentioned users may employ cloud services to satisfy immediate needs, but rarely use best practices for security, compliance, and cost efficiency. Insurers that have this gap in their cloud strategy can also be at risk for vendor lock-in, as one provider’s services proliferate throughout the organization.

To avoid this, CIOs should develop a cloud governance model that establishes guardrails for cloud usage to mitigate risk and monitor the enterprise’s cloud expense. This does not mean adding needless red tape. Effective governance should speed up decision-making by providing transparency for the roles and responsibilities of the organization.

Some organizations choose to set up a cloud center of excellence as a resource for the enterprise, which can provide training to individuals interested in cloud services while promoting good security and compliance practices. The center can also monitor overall cloud usage, prevent costs from ballooning, and look for efficiencies through automation.

Some of the key values a cloud governance program can promote, include:

• Ensuring compliance as data moves to and from the cloud.
• Securing all integration points from inside the firewall to the cloud.
• Cataloguing cloud services use to avoid redundancy and promote automation.
• Creating a standard way of utilizing cloud services and cloud deployment scripts with a level of abstraction to allow the organization to switch vendors in the future.

A cloud governance model should be updated on a regular cadence to reflect changes in the organization and access to new technologies. Creating a model will take time, but ultimately, it will encourage the enterprise’s cloud migration journey.

For more on cloud migration strategy, including implications to finances, architecture, and people, see Novarica’s report, Cloud Migration Strategy: Key Issues and Best Practices.