John Pescatore

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John Pescatore
VP Distinguished Analyst
11 years at Gartner
32 years IT industry

John Pescatore is a vice president and research fellow in Gartner Research. Mr. Pescatore has 32 years of experience in computer, network and information security. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Pescatore was senior consultant for Entrust Technologies and Trusted Information Systems… Read Full Bio

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Cloud, Yes – Commodity Cloud, Probably Not

by John Pescatore  |  December 6, 2010  |  2 Comments

Big news last week, as the US Government Services Administration chose Google Apps for Government for cloud based email, over Microsoft’s BPO/Exchange 365 offering.  From a security perspective, the news is less that Google beat out Microsoft for this procurement (Microsoft beat Google for other agency’s cloud-based email) – the new is that the US Government moved to cloud-based email.

But notice that the competition was between providers of cloud-based email for the Government, not between commodity cloud-based email. Matt Cain and I wrote a research note earlier this year, “Microsoft Speeds Race to Demonstrate Secure Collaboration Clouds” when Microsoft announced it had a “FISMA-ready” offering for cloud-based email. Google later announced the same thing.

Neither of these offerings were the vanilla, consumer-grade cloud based offerings both vendors offer.  There are added-value security controls, physical constraints on the location of data centers etc. As Matt and I recommended in that Research Note:

  • Make security certification and integrated security controls part of any evaluation of cloud suppliers.
  • Look for cloud service providers that offer enough data protection to meet today’s compliance requirements. Over time, compliance requirements will adapt to challenges posed by cloud architectures.
  • Avoid long-term contracts with cloud service providers since competition will rapidly drive providers to increase security.

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