My hiatus from blogging can be attributed to the incredibly insane workloads I've been dealing with over the least few years, especially as we are all forced to do more with less in this global economy.
Today, I did want to take a few moments out to touch upon a rather contentious subject that many companies in the UK are faciing...
Should we manage our Active Directory deployments ourselves, or should we outsource them to a provide in the cloud?
Outsourcing the management of Active Directory has its benefits as well as its drawbacks. This is a relatively new phenomenon in that it has been around for about 3 - 4 years, but it may be starting to pick up some real steam this year given the dismal state of the global economy.
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Should you Outsource the management of your Active Directory to the Cloud? |
(Image Source - http://www.consuro.com/assets/networkoperationscenter.aspx)
I've heard many reasons both in support and against the argument.
Proponents of outsroucing point out that it can result in lowered cost of management and thus result in IT savings which is something all CTOs would love to have in this economy - http://www.itwire.com/cloud-computing/53107-hp-scores-six-year-it-outsourcing-deal-from-downer-edi
However, critics argue that while this may save costs, it could substantially increase the risk to IT security as by outsroucing the management of something as core as the Active Directory, one would effectively be outsourceing the bedrock of security - http://www.identitysecurityandaccessblog.com
Personally, I am inclined to find a balance and see if there are ways in which we can ahcieve greater efficiences in our IT management without having to outsource the management of critical infrastructure components as the Active Directory to providers in the cloud.
If you'd care to share any thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment, and I'll be happy to respond.
