Net neutrality is the fly in the cloud ointment, says analyst

Net neutrality is bad for the enterprise because in an age of when workers are increasingly mobile, it makes it harder to secure confidential business information, according to a leading analyst.

"The internet is 10,000 service providers all providing their little bit of data and handling it between each other," said Clive Longbottom, service director, business process analyst, at Quocirca.

"Net neutrality is one of the worst things that could possibly happen if you look at it from a corporate point of view," he said.

"We need more control in the cloud and net neutrality does not give us that capability. What controls do we have? Minimal."

Longbottom said the problem was compounded by the fact that most companies still lack a coherent mobile security strategy.

"Companies often think that because they have security at rest that this means they have got full encryption. Just because your data is encrypted at rest doesn't mean that it will be encrypted on the move," he said.

"The internet is where the mobile user is likely to be coming in and he or she is likely going to use functions available in the public internet. How do we know that the user is going to touch anything to do with the organisation and the controlled environment?"

Companies should think strategically about what the cloud can offer for it to be a successful solution.

Longbottom said that although companies may be attracted by the "glitzy" options the cloud has to offer, it should be the end result that matters and this should fit with the business needs.

"This is where cloud is going to survive, thrive or fail. If it goes out there and tries to be the ultimate answer to everybody it will fail.

"If it goes out there and says there are certain things we can do better, not necessarily cheaper, but better, and this is how we fit in with scale up and scale out, then we stand a chance of it working."

Longbottom was speaking at NetEvents in Barcelona.