Cybersecurity has been a hot topic in the last few years and will continue to be one. The good news is that consumer trust in internet security is on the rise, as we can tell from the growing number of online retailers and their record-breaking sales figures. We also see more businesses moving their data and systems to the cloud, using SaaS providers such as Salesforce or by deploying their own applications with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

Security, a #1 priority for SaaS

Prioritizing security and compliance is mandatory for all businesses that want to provide services in the cloud. To assure their customers that their data is secure, Cloud and SaaS providers must invest heavily in the security of their installations and systems. Such investments are usually substantially higher than what companies actually invest in their own data centers.

Cloud/SaaS providers also need to comply with established rules and regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, ISO and SOC, to name a few, and perform yearly audits on their policies, procedures, systems, etc. This ensures that best practices and standards are implemented and adopted by all employees.

These stringent requirements are part of the reasons whyAmazon VP & CTO Werner Vogels anticipates we will soon see a general acceptance that “organizations are more secure in the cloud than in their own data centers.” And customers of these Cloud/SaaS providers are the ones who stand to gain.

Intelligent search will accelerate the secure transition to the cloud

In hisintelligent search predictions for 2016, Coveo CTO Laurent Simoneau shared that greater confidence in cybersecurity will enable more organizations to unify their cloud and on-premises content and enjoy the benefits of cloud intelligent search. Having been involved in the security and compliance of Coveo’s cloud intelligent search offerings in the last few years, I’d say that accelerating the secure transition to the cloud is a major plus point of cloud intelligent search.

Cloud transitions are not easy for most companies because their customers and employees already have a hard time finding information from a limited number of on-premises systems. Adding new systems in different locations just makes it worse.

Cloud intelligent search, such as Coveo, helps businesses overcome this challenge by securely indexing content from both cloud and on-premises systems and unifying all the content in a single index.

It seamlessly integrates different authentication and authorization mechanisms from the systems it indexes so everyone can access all the information relevant to their work from a single place. This is made possible by deploying secure connector agents to on-premises systems – such as document management systems or file shares – and gathering information from these systems to keep the cloud index up-to-date. All this with the simplicity, scalability and security of a SaaS offering.

And as my colleague and VP of Coveo’s Platform, Gauthier Robe, explained inHow Intelligent Search Will Transform the Digital Workplace, cloud intelligent search allows your customers and employees to access the best and most relevant information, based on their context and, of course, their security credentials.

At Coveo, we work with our customers to give their customers and employees the most relevant information through our intelligent search platform. In 2016, we will see more companies moving to the cloud and Coveo is there to help unify information from on-premises and cloud systems and deliver the best information to everyone, every time.
Intelligent-Search-Platform Banner-2