Consider the scenario: A small to medium organization needs more horsepower but it really doesn't have the budget yet to build out its own enterprise-class data center. Cloud computing offers an off-site, managed data-center that can be used to deploy applications for use by both external and internal constituents. Take advantage of SaaS offerings such as those from Salesforce.com and you've very nearly outsourced all your application needs. It's all off-site, which is allegedly better for your bottom line and saves you the headaches of hiring a lot of IT staff to manage that infrastructure yourself.

What these means for internal employees, however, is that all the applications they need to use on a daily basis are off-site. They don't require a lot of internal infrastructure, even mail services could be hosted "in the cloud" for additional efficiencies in storage and infrastructure costs. The question becomes, then, why is the organization wasting more money leasing office space so their employees can commute to the "office" and then spend their day accessing applications outside the organization?

The potential is that cloud computing, used liberally, could turn nearly every employee into a telecommuter because once you're accessing an application across the Internet it really doesn't matter from a technological viewpoint from what location you're accessing them.

I know what you're thinking - there's more to a data center and its infrastructure than just web apps. There's file storage, e-mail and productivity applications, and other network-based applications that are not, perhaps necessarily, web-based. Outsourcing all those responsibilities to a third-party cloud computing provider seems a bit far-fetched without the proper method of accessing them securely across the public internet. That's where a secure remote access solution such as an SSL VPN comes in.

By ensuring access to an SSL VPN cloud computing infrastructure providers can offer access to all appropriate data center resources in a secure way without requiring a lot of the PKI overhead that comes from IPSEC-based VPN implementations. Most SSL VPN gateways provide an on-demand client, so there's almost no management overhead on the client-side and it's a no-brainer for the end-user no matter how technical or non-technical they may be.

An SSL VPN would also ensure that end-users are compliant with the provider's and the organization's security policies through their implementation of endpoint security. This includes actions such as requiring anti-virus solutions to be running, verifying that specific OS patches are installed, and even checking to see if certain applications are running, such as malware or bots.

Basically, an SSL VPN is the perfect complement to a nearly complete outsourced data center in the "cloud" because it secures access to the applications and the infrastructure in the cloud in a simple, cost and management efficient way.

That means an as organization you could offer, if you like, more telecommuting opportunities for employees, which can reduce office costs dramatically and provide a wider selection of employees because you aren't limited to a specific locale or requiring relocation.

You might want to ditch the video-conferencing idea, though. Just in case.