The cloud!

My brother posed an intriguing question on the evil Facebook today that peaked my interest.

He asked the simple question: "More Bandwidth, or More Storage"? (I'm paraphrasing)

The context surrounding the question is that the tech-savvy consumer crowd are starting to see cloud storage sources popping up, and are starting to ask the same questions that the enterprise crowd have been asking for ages. That is, "should I put my stuff in the cloud?"

I've argued against it in every company I've ever worked for. I do not like cloud storage in the enterprise for the same reason I don't like outsourcing IT support to India or China: I like to control my own destiny.

I >know< there is a backup plan. Because I wrote it and am implementing it.

I >know< there is 24/7 monitoring on everything deemed critical. Because I implemented it.

I >know< the redundancy features in the system because I built AND tested them.

I >know< every design flaw in the system. Because I designed it. (one might argue that was flaw #1 :P)

My viewpoint, one might argue, was validated earlier this year when Amazon's cloud services took a long and unexpected downtime, leaving many of their customers down for long periods of time.

This is not to say that it could not ever happen to a locally serviced infrastructure…it can and has. But if you design and build it properly, you can control exactly how likely an outage is. And, when you get that 3am phone call where everything is down, you have intimate knowledge of the system and how to put it all back together…specific to YOUR business' needs. Your cloud service provider (CSP, if you will) is only focused on getting it's system back and in service.

You are focused on the business-critical items you need to be functioning now, and you can table the things that can wait. You can prioritize.

All that said…while I think the solution isn't optimal for MOST things in the enterprise, for the consumer the cloud is a god-send.

Fact of life #1: Most users don't back up their data. Heck, I don't even back up ALL my data, and I've been doing IT crap for years.

Fact of life #2: All hard drives will fail. Every single one.

Combine facts #1 & #2, and you can have a recipe for a really bad day. Multiply that by the millions of data consumers out there and you have a LOT of really bad days.

But, cloud storage is now getting so cheap that you can get tons of free/low cost places to put your data. And why shouldn't you? Bandwidth is cheap, and for the most part (loads of caveats), unlimited. Also, your data is reachable from any device you own now! Even if you forgot to sync!

If do decide to go with a cloud strategy for your data, here are some tips from a seasoned nerd:

1) Stick with the big names. Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon. Why? They have the most to lose from the bad publicity that would result if they mishandled your data. That isn't to say that any one of them WON'T mishandle your data. But for the big guys, it means millions and millions of dollars lost.

For www.freeharddrivebackups.com (I just made that up), mishandling your data means their little small business idea failed, and they have to spend 15 bucks to register a new domain name. Always follow the money…stay with the big guys, they have more to lose.

2) Make sure any data you care about exists in THREE places. Always, always, ALWAYS three: a primary you use all the time, a backup location in case something happens and a third copy in case the backup fails.

You aren't going to be testing the backup all the time. You just aren't. The only time you will test the backup is if the primary dies. And by then, it is too late. You will thank me for copy #3 one day. Trust me.