| | July 20158CIOReviewopinionin myWhile it's well known that virtualization controls costs, it's often overlooked that it also supports governance and risk controls. The CIO of Digital River believes virtualization can be the foundation of a powerful enterprise risk management strategy. The risks of virtualizationEven today, virtualization can make CIOs nervous. Taking data and computation out of big iron in your own four walls is inherently risky. Using a public cloud means paying someone else to use their computers--which means, as I sometimes observe, that your business operations are touching every computer those computers have ever touched. Investing in a private cloud, on the other hand, means trusting your business operations to third-party vendors, each of which has its own terms and its own limitations--some of which you might not consider until exactly the wrong moment. Hybrid solutions compound these risks. I like to joke that the only way to virtualize IT operations with absolute security and governance is to put everything back on your mainframe and lock the door. Still, any technologist can tell you that virtualizing some aspects of your company's IT operations--applications, web servers, even databases--is a necessity. Years ago, virtualization was a cutting-edge way to save money, power and space. But by now, those efficiencies are built into the competitive landscape--and CIOs accept the risks that come with virtualization as a necessary cost of doing business. But my experience as CIO leads me to believe that virtualization is far more than a risk to be endured ­ when carefully architected it should serve as the foundation of an enterprise governance and risk management strategy. Here at Digital River, we provide access to our global ecommerce infrastructure as a service to merchants marketing and selling products and services around the world. Along with that access, we must ensure that our applications can scale rapidly to accommodate unpredictable spikes in online demand, protect against ever-evolving security threats, maintain auditable compliance with an array of local laws and regulations, and ensure solid supportability. To help govern and manage the risks of operating in the modern global market, Digital River virtualized nearly all of our IT stack in 2013. Now, practically all of the applications we build, the data centers we establish, and the transactions we process--works consistently and reliably, based on a single set of operational standards and protocols that evolves at the speed of the market. Needless to say, Digital Virtualization as Risk Management By Christopher Rence, SVP & CIO, Digital RiverChristopher Rence | | July 20158CIOReview
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