Physical servers lend the comfort of knowing where your data is located and having control over access and protection of that data. But from a business perspective, there is a lot virtualization can offer. So what's the compromise with security, and is it worth the switch to a cloud environment?

While the cloud is an "open environment," with no physical equipment to hold data in a hard-and-fast location, there are security measures that can be taken. Understanding how your technology is being used and who would be interested in accessing stored information is an important step in protecting against security threats. It is also important to consider what type of cloud you are utilizing -public, private, or hybrid. When analyzed thoroughly, you can then integrate security controls into your architecture to view, manage, and control vulnerability and threats.

Finally, you must consider trust. How the technology is used depends on users, devices, applications, and data. Security policies and controls can be determined and installed after establishing how and why the data may be accessed. Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Intel explains in more detail the significance of trust and avoiding security breaches.Read what he has to say.

You  may want also to take advantage of our coming webcast to see how industry peers are doing to solve the very challenges Cloud adopters face. Tune in to a webcast on December 6 at 9:00 am PST  to hear from Cisco UCS customers Xerox and FICO Corporation, about how and why they used it in their Cloud environments.