Question

From the perspective of The Human Resource Manager- Recruitment and Staffing Department, discuss the implications of backup and recovery over Metro-E and into the cloud.

1. Suggest ONE advantage and ONE disadvantage.
2. Discuss ONE security consequence that could arise from VPN access to the company’s IT infrastructure.

Answer 1

Every company needs to have a backup and recovery plan to ensure that crucial data is not lost in the event of an unexpected event such as system failures, damages to infrastructure/hardware, malicious attacks (external or internal). This is another reason more firms are opting to back up data in a cloud environment, where required content can be stored and retrieved more reliably, efficiently, securely and also cheaply. Metro-E is a metropolitan ethernet than can provide cost-effective internet connectivity to LANs (local area networks/single offices) or WANs (wide area networks, multi-office setups). It is used by businesses, academic institutions and govt agencies in large cities for several reasons such as higher bandwidth that can be modified as usage changes, cost-effective solution, better service as VOIP and regular network traffic can be run concurrently. (REDtone, 2016)

As the HR manager in the recruiting and staffing department, the prime concern would be about data storage and privacy as the key information in this department would be personnel data of all employees in the firm as well as personal information about potential candidates. Losing any/part of this critical data would be a big loss, and the theft of the same an even bigger breach. Losing information from employees/candidates might still be a recoverable issue, however theft can leave employees and external candidates open to further violations such as identity theft, insurance fraud, bank fraud etc. These are very serious offenses and every company needs to have a strict plan in place to ensure

1) that the incidence of this happening is minimal-zero by complying with the current governance and statues around data collection, and ensuring all possibles safeguards are in place

2) disaster recovery plans are in place for if it does - notifications, police/legal action if needed etc.

A cloud backup over a Metro-E will ensure that data is safely secured and not prone to loss either during backups or with any hardware degradation. The main advantage is that once the metro-e and cloud solution is in place, the backups can be scheduled as needed and the metro-e and cloud providers will assume the responsibility of overseeing security and updates to software and hardware as needed. The SLAs signed with the providers will also cushion the firm from any liabilities resulting from a loss/breach if it should happen.

A disadvantage to this course of action however is that external parties will now be able to access crucial and critical information about the employees and candidates in the company, creating more possibilities of loss/breach from the metro-e side - internal employees committing fraud or external attacks to the metro-e, or cloud - internal hardware/software issues leading to susceptibility to viruses or attacks. If the data is too valuable to transmit over a metro-e or stored in a cloud, that portion alone can be protected in in-house servers to ensure lower chances of breaches. Another option is to use encryption, strong encryptions can used to transmit data over external sources like metro-e and into third-party cloud providers to limit the chances of data being readable outside of the firm's decryption protocols.

A VPN (virtual private network) is a preferred mode of using a public network and can help provide an additional layer of security and is especially useful with employees that tele-commute (work out of office locations). Employees might use wi-fi in public places such as airports, coffee shops, or client locations, which can expose that laptop and any content on it/on the cloud it accesses, to malicious attacks and viruses etc. A VPN can work as a firewall and protect your data whenever you log in. This can greatly reduce the chances of data losses and breaches, while promoting productivity (work from anywhere) and security (clients will prefer to know that their data is protected) (Bourque, 2017).  

References :

Bourque, Andre. (2017) 5 ways your company can benefit from using a VPN. Computerworld.

REDtone. (2016) 5 Reasons Your Business Should Have Metro-E Connection.