Data in the Cloud cannot be guaranteed to be secure

[bobtran]

Aye and your local hard drive is any more reliable. Silly people.

As for Windows Azure going down...it didn't only the management dashboard because of certificate issues. Leap years got its claws in the certificate causing issues for connecting. But no data was lost. * Azure wasn't the only to have certificate issues on the 29th.

Perform regular backups and YES.....your hard drive is more reliable by far. Just because people consider backups as optional does not mean that HDD on pc is less robust than cloud storage......when you compare MTBF on pc HDD and raid configured HDD's on cloud servers you will find that the odd's of a failure is much higher for the server installation than on any single pc drive..........Read/Write IO is MUCH higher on a web facing server than on a personal pc. As for the fact that no Data was lost is mostly so much smoke and mirrors....if the cloud is not accessible then you are not storing data anyway so the database might as well have lost data.....you are still not doing business when this happens which is the REAL downside to cloud storage......management console or not, the data was not accessible which means anyone needing access to perform work was essentially up the creek without a paddle.....don't really understand what part of this people don't get when they talk about cloud storage.....it makes no difference what part is broken if you can't transact business.

Not really sure why this occurred when Microsoft SHOULD HAVE HAD fail-over standby installations ready at all times.....if not, then there is no reason that they should be in the cloud business in the first place........Are they a professional organization or not......failure to prepare for disaster recovery is very, very unprofessional, especially for a company like Microsoft......any monkey can keep from loosing data with SQLserver....the mark of true professionals is whether or not the database is accessible on a 24X7X365 basis....this is where redundant fail-over web/app servers really pay for themselves. It's not as if Microsoft has to pay licensing for the fail-over servers the way their customers do....this should have been built into the contracts with their customers.

As a Database Admin this failure really speaks to me about the level of or lack of professionalism that the customer receives for their money and should never have happened. Someone's head should be rolling.

There is no excuse good enough to excuse Microsoft for this type of failure, after all this is their business and they would be the first to point out this point of failure should someone contract with them for consultation on data center design and setup. This exact type of failure is elementary in Disaster Recovery planning.

 

[logicearth]

...the data was not accessible...

No, the data was available, the data was accessible. What was not available was the management console that allows one to create more instances of their app or new accounts. This outage only affected the management console because of the SSL certificate hit a leap year bug. Not having a fall-back server was not the problem, it wouldn't have solved anything.

But no, the data was there and accessible. Nothing lost.

 

[richnrockville]

I have only three words to say about storing your data in one place.
It's in my sig.

Rich

 

[jimbo45]

Aye and your local hard drive is any more reliable. Silly people.

As for Windows Azure going down...it didn't only the management dashboard because of certificate issues. Leap years got its claws in the certificate causing issues for connecting. But no data was lost. * Azure wasn't the only to have certificate issues on the 29th.

Actually local HDD's - especially if you ensure proper and regular backups are reliable -- in any case where's the data stored in the "Cloud" - On Clouds or on HDD type devices

--and anybody who says large organisations don't have outages -- well think again.

My main dislike actually isn't based on the reliability or otherwise but on the following

1) You are subject to uncertain pricing in Broadband so what might seem cheap today could be an expensive option to get out of later.

2) Political or other influences can ensure that your data is available to 3rd parties in various situations.

3) Misuse of the server by OTHER individuals could cause it to be shut down -- look at MEGAUPLOAD.

4) Some of these servers might be hosted in "Cheaper Countries" such as Bangladesh where natural disasters are frequent-- Flooding for example is endemic in that country. It's no point saying it won't happen IT WILL

Business will ALWAYS try to get the cheapest option if it means pleasing the sahreholders who just want the Bucks -- they don't care at all about the integrity of the data or the service.


I have no objection into using online services (Online Banking for example) but with the Cloud you are too much at the mercy of factors you have absolutely NO control over.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Colonel Travis]

I have only three words to say about storing your data in one place.
It's in my sig.

Rich

Ha - big fat amen to this.

 

[richnrockville]

FWIW: I have two clients (both Law firms) and they have graduated (or whatever) to cloud computing. The facility performs on-site backups each day.
They do all their office communicatins thru the exchange server in the cloud as well as their law program and all the documents that they use. It works great but:::::

I recommend that anyone using a cloud computing company have another off-site backup that the user can access Just in case the cloud company goes belly up and they close it all down.

One of the clients believed me that an offsite backup would be good. They use Mozypro but there are others. The main argument against the off-site was that they had their documents and such on their local computer as a backup. BUT their OST/pst files from Outlook were not local so if the provider when under, their email would be gone gone gone.

I really don't want to be a "I told you so" but they are living on the edge and I am glad that I dropped them as clients.
The other client believed me and used MOZYPRO and they have a warm fuzzy just in case the provider goes under.

The nice thing about offsite backup is that you can setup a local server and then retrieve all the data from the Mozy backup and with a minimum of aggrivation and lost data. the client will be back in business....

Lawyers should know better but evidently think computers are infalible.

Not me.

Just a short caution..

Rich

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Lawyers are usually fairly "Techno Phobic" when it comes to computers.

These days they STILL can't deal with urgent requests by email --so what happens if you are away from home and important documents need to be actioned.

In most countries electronic signatures are now allowed and at LEAST a scan and email should be OK -- ISP's and Telcos can provide date/time / ip address of any requested email if dispute arises.

Often you STILL get the argument --"We cannot deal via email" so you miss your Court date.

However the whole sebang falls back on them as a Court will acknowlege difficulty in these cases and send the whole she-bang back to the Lawyers.

However I do agree using the Cloud is not a good idea if it's YOUR ONLY means of data access and application execution.

Cheers
jimbo