How can we make the Data Center Future-ready?
SurachaiChatchalermpun, SVP, KTB- Krung Thai Bank
How has changing technology shaped the Data Center Industry?
The data center industry is changing and proliferating to meet growing demands. Data centers are striving to get faster with innovative technologies to offer faster network speeds. However, the fact remains that the data center or the server on-premise, cannot serve user demand and hence many people are switching to the cloud. The current data center is reaching its limits of capacity and performance. It is also expensive and time-consuming and thus many enterprises have instead, moved to cloud. The reason? It’s much easier and far more cost-effective to scale on cloud than on-prem. But at the same time, enterprises need to have suitable security and the cloud architecture to have a holistic view to carry out the hybrid and multi-cloud.
What would be some of the best practices to secure organizations’ data?
Protecting data in the modern era is essential. So enterprises need to have their web content management system secured. Also, for a robust and modern defense, organizations need to adopt machine learning and AI to predict cyberattacks. Privacy and the security laws such as GDPR and PDPA are helping organizations to protect their data.
One of the most significant challenges today is having both on-premise and cloud servers. So many CIOs and CISOs need to rethink security as a web proxy or firewall, as only the on-premise perimeter defense.
If employees are not present in the office premises—for instance, the COVID-19 situation where employees are working from home—security is bound to be downgraded because the web proxy or the firewall does not extend to their home network. To this end, we need to bring the web proxy on trial, and even though employees may go anywhere or work from wherever, the proxy will always be on the cloud. This will enable every user surfing the internet to do so via a cloud proxy. Thus it is safe to say that the trend of the usage of data centers will reduce and the usage of the cloud will be increased.
How do you see the evolution of the Data center arena a few years from now with regard to some of its potential disruptions and transformations? Also, what would be the single piece of advice that you could impart to a fellow or aspiring professional in your field?
The startups can jumpstart, and they don’t need to invest in data centers like before. They can use the cloud as the platform or the SaaS and don’t have to think about their infrastructure anymore. They can focus on their appreciation and business requirements to serve the customer.
Digital transformation is a buzz word in this day and age. So every startup or the IT organization’s CIO needs to take care of the cybersecurity more than ever. Cybercriminals are breaching networks and stealing data as they can access data from the digital platforms. So you need to invest about 10 percent of the budget to cybersecurity. The IT expertise should be aware of the CSF, i.e. Cyber Security Framework, which will identify, detect, protect, respond, and recover to prevent cyber threats. Thus, you need to have a good cybersecurity framework to assess your risk profile.
Lastly, emphasizing on data security, you need to have a better understanding and adherence with compliance and regulations, as they help companies in reducing risk. Because if your data is on the cloud and not adequately secured, you will face a penalty from the regulatory bodies.
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