Cloud Computing – The Facts

Cloud computing, you hear the term all the time. It’s in the news, it’s going to save your company money etc, etc. But what is it exactly and what are the risks? Wiki has the term described as :

“A computing capability that provides an abstraction between the computing resource and its underlying technical architecture (e.g., servers, storage, networks), enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

So, applications can for example be put into the cloud and many users from many Companies can share the same resource. Less power usage, no need for your own physical infrastructure etc. In theory, it’s a great idea. And for many non-critical business applications it’s probably a good concept. But for mission critical or core business applications, it’s not the way forward. Already we see some spectacular disasters of lost user data that was in the cloud. On 11th Oct 09, part of Microsoft’s cloud crashed.

“Microsoft has demonstrated that the dark side of cloud computing has no silver linings. After a major server outage occurred on its watch last weekend, users dependent on the company have just been informed that their personal data and photos “has almost certainly been lost.”

T-Mobile’s ‘sidekick’ which was affected by the crash had the following posted on its website:

“Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.”

My real concern with cloud computing is not the physical layer going down (servers, hard drives etc) as much as data theft. If a hack where available, many cloud based users accounts, applications and data across many Companies could be compromised. Yes, the cloud Companies keep telling us how good the security is but wasn’t that the same old story from the music houses a few years back? How secure music downloads and anti piracy measures where? Only to be hacked a few weeks after implementation.

Cloud computing has its place, but not for everything.