The cloud

[Sin_Chase]

You obviously have never looked into or used this service.... if you had you would understand all about data encryption (either from the upload side or server side)... therefore you would have resisted the urge to throw in the red herring about some data security issue that does not exist ... unless your stupid enough not to use it for personal or industrial/commerce sensitive materials

Just had to comment on this.

Encryption is not going to be your saving grace. What the service is advertised as is one thing, what ACTUALLY happens is a totally different affair.

There are so many pitfalls with 'Cloud' services in the corporate world. Data Export regulation. Where are your 'Cloud' servers physically located? Any jurisdictional regulation that you need to take into account?

What happens to your data once it's in their hands?

What they say is one thing but the reality might be vastly different.

I am not sold on 'The Cloud' and I hate the way large companies are touting it's benefits and ignoring the potential downfalls. Our net connection went down the other week (Global Corporate Business) and we lost access to every single cloud service until connectivity was restored.

 

[Essexraptor]

Just had to comment on this.

Encryption is not going to be your saving grace. What the service is advertised as is one thing, what ACTUALLY happens is a totally different affair.

There are so many pitfalls with 'Cloud' services in the corporate world. Data Export regulation. Where are your 'Cloud' servers physically located? Any jurisdictional regulation that you need to take into account?

What happens to your data once it's in their hands?

What they say is one thing but the reality might be vastly different.

I am not sold on 'The Cloud' and I hate the way large companies are touting it's benefits and ignoring the potential downfalls. Our net connection went down the other week (Global Corporate Business) and we lost access to every single cloud service until connectivity was restored.

Yup your bang on with your points

BUT If the data is that sensitive to you... perhaps the "cloud" is not where you should be storing it?

With AWS... you can actually pick the location of the storage server. Perhaps not by street name and address but a geographical location is better than nothing. Again.... at all levels.... if jurisdictional regulation is a concern... surely as a Pro IT you'd check all that out before commiting data?

Losing connection is a bummer if your corporate or a lowly home user like me... but it's the nature of the beast I'm afraid

Getting away from the storage side though... this cloud thing seems to offer many other services.

Anyone used them or have any feedback?

 

[Essexraptor]

The one thing that holds this back is not internet speeds (well, maybe for HD content), but bandwidth caps.

Good point by Little Crow

Fell foul of this very thing this past weekend. ie bandwidth caps

If your a home user check carefully your bandwith caps and "fair useage" terms and conditions with your ISP. Especially so if you are doing an initial upload of your home server/NAS data to a cloud service. It seems they (ISP's) have a problem with uploading at a high level (mine is 10% of your stated upload speed) over a prolonged period. They will cap and lower you for up to 5 - 8 hours at a time. You might be one of those naughty file sharers...lol

Best to either

a) stage the upload over the wee small hours on a schedule

b) ring them and get a temporary no cap agreement.

Either way for home users it takes ages

 

[Ev0]

Getting away from the storage side though... this cloud thing seems to offer many other services.

Anyone used them or have any feedback?

Have used things like hosted exchange, a few SaaS applications for things and they've been pretty good.

But as with everything what's good/suitable for one person isn't necessarily for another

I remember being at a Qualys conference a couple of years ago and their CEO was saying how they are moving everything they use internally over to 'XaaS' services.