So it seems like the anti-cloud fanatics are all popping open beers in celebration of MSFT’s failure to restore user data for T-Mobile’s sidekick.
I’m not sure I’d blame clouds, cause I’m not sure I’d consider that T-Mobile service a cloud to begin with. Unless you consider your IMAP box at your ISP a cloud, or your corporate exchange server a cloud, or wiki a cloud. Sidekick is a service. Services go down. Sometimes service providers cut corners and don’t hire enough staff so that the admins can test a restore of the backups created.
The anti-cloud people are telling to to keep all your data locally. On your single consumer grade hard drive. That is subject to residential power spikes and dips. That is never backed up because (unless your an OSX user with Time Machine) it is a pain-in-the-ass to do backups. That even if it is backed up, it is put on a shelf in the same building as your original copy.
Yes, this was a clusterf–k of massive proportions. And so it made news. But how many people lose all the family pictures because their house was flooded and the hard drive and backup CDR/DVD-Rs washed away too? How many people lose all their data because they drop their laptop and the harddrive crashes? or lose their data because burgers stole their PC?
Even in the corporate world, one has to consider that cloud-like service providers are better. In a small company, or company with a small IT shop, how often do you check your backup tapes to make sure they are readable? How much do you pay to Iron Mountain to store the data offsite. How good is your monitoring of your Raid-Array to know when a drive fails? (I discovered this one first hand at StayOnline).
As in everything Caveat Emptor. Know who your cloud/service provider is. Do they compete on price or service? Recall that you get what you pay for and if they are a bargain basement provider, they probably hire bargain basement staff who may or may not know the number 1 rule of backups is to test your restore process. If you’re a small or large company, demand to see their DR plans prior to moving your critical business processes into their cloud. And, as the previous administration learned, have an exit strategy, because at the end of the day _you_ are responsible for your decisions and if you fuck up and go with the wrong vendor, you will be held accountable by the executives, who will be held accountable by the shareholders and customers.