Many companies are still apprehensive about moving to cloud computing, most often citing security as their main concern. We’ll go over the arguments against cloud computing in another post. For now I’d like to focus on one particular concern: the remote worker.
The whole working from home thing is relatively new in the business world, so it makes sense that there would be some hesitation in embracing it. The first concern is that the worker won’t be as productive, the second that he might access restricted data. Without a manager to look over an employee’s shoulder, they might be doing anything, including selling information to competitors. Fortunately, for those of us who prefer our home environments to the office, these worries are unfounded.
Remote workers have just as many security parameters as those in the office, technically they have more. On top of their regular security account, most home users connect through a VPN, which has its own level of security. If an IT department is so inclined, they can setup VPN access groups with a variety of security levels, making connections from outside the office as safe, or safer, than connections from inside the office.
Beyond the security is monitoring. Just because your employee is working from home, it doesn’t mean you can’t see exactly what he’s doing. If everything is setup properly, the only difference between a home agent and an office agent is their physical location. Managers don’t need to see their agent’s computer screens, frankly, today’s monitoring software can tell a manager more about their agent than a brief glance at their screen can.
There are other concerns about the home user. What if they get a virus or someone hacks through their ill-configured wireless setup? That’s simple to get around as well. Thin clients go for around 200 dollars these days, and can be purchased without a wireless network card and with preconfigured anti-virus software. The only real downside of working from home is missing out on the water cooler talk.
Tags: call center, cloud computing, remote worker, thin client, vpn