Welcome!

Cloud Expo Authors: Elizabeth White, Dana Gardner, Jeremy Geelan, Helen Ching, Adrian Bridgwater

Related Topics: Cloud Expo, Virtualization

Cloud Expo: Article

Opinion: Cloud Computing in 2008 - Not For the Faint-Hearted

I think it's best to wait until the market is better established before storing anything mission-critical on 'The Cloud'

Jim Connolly's Tech News Blog

I think that cloud computing is going to be 'the way ahead' for most businesses and individuals in the coming year or two. It makes a lot of sense. However, right now, in 2008, I think it's a very brave person who would entrust their business data to one of the thousands of micro-businesses offering 'cloud computing' services.
Why?

‘The cloud’ is actually just a server in someone’s building at another location. There are new, small businesses coming up every day offering us a cloud computing facility - may of whom will not even be trading in 12 months. Remember, over 50% of new businesses cease trading within the initial 12 months!

What happens to our data if they go broke and their servers are snatched back by their creditors? What about the security of your data - when the cloud provider no longer owns the servers?

Another common problem with the initial raft of cloud server services is scaling. New 2.0 businesses tend to grow too fast. They quickly get too many people storing too much data - which is being uploaded and downloaded too frequently and BOOM - it all grinds to a halt. So, there you are about to give a presentation to a major client, when you log on to download your snazzy presentation from ‘the cloud’ and nothing happens! Even Twitter, with all its millions of VC funding finds itself ‘broken’ at some point most days!

I think cloud computing WILL be totally dominant by 2009, but I think it’s best to wait until the market is better established before storing anything mission-critical on ‘the cloud.’

What do you think?


[This appeared originally here and is republished in full with the kind permission of the author.]

More Stories By Jim Connolly

Jim Connolly writes TheTechNewsBlog (www.thetechnewsblog.com).

Comments (1) View Comments

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.


Most Recent Comments
Troy Tolle 07/15/08 07:19:14 AM EDT

The argument you make here is not just for cloud computing, it is for any service you use. If you choose to go with a startup to provide a service for you because they are cheaper or better, then you have to weigh the risks with that. It is about making smart choices. We have chosen to use [http://aws.amazon.com Amazon's Web Services] Cloud Computing infrastructure for [http://www.digitalchalk.com DigitalChalk] and I don't see them going away anytime soon. They are far from "startup", but there are other portions of the business we have chosen to use virtual new comers to business. Risk/Reward... It is what being in business is all about.

Cloud Expo Breaking News
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference... We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what e...
2011 was a year of rapid adoption for public and private cloud services. Instant and on-demand server provisioning was the driving force behind the massive growth. On top, cloud server templates and script automation simplified application installation for simple and pre-defined application stacks, but have not targeted more complex enterprise application environments. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, John Yung, CEO of Appcara, will discuss how 2012 will be the year for app...
"Having been in the IT field for many years, I believe the cloud computing chapter in the industry is an exciting one and I am proud to be a part of it," said National Reconaissance Office (NRO) Chief Information Officer Jill T. Singer Tuesday, as it was announced that she was one of 10 winners of the 2012 CloudNOW "Top Ten Women in Cloud" Awards.
As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It wou...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) just four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference... We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else h...
Building a cloud computing environment with on-demand access to compute, network, and storage resources requires an elastic infrastructure at multiple levels. Virtualization combined with x86 servers has transformed the way we scale out compute resources. Unfortunately, legacy Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage architectures are rooted in rigid mainframe-era designs, and are fundamentally mismatched with the dynamic, shared modern data center. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, ...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference... We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what e...
With Big Data Expo 2012 New York (co-located with 10th Cloud Expo) now under four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference... We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where ...
With Big Data Expo 2012 New York (co-located with 10th Cloud Expo) just four months away, what better time to start introducing you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
Can you bring services from the cloud to your customers faster and have them adopt it with ease of use or bring the power of bundled services to the fingertips of your clients without creating new rigid ‘apps stove pipes'? Do you want to prevent your business running away to public and unmanageably immature cloud services? In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Hans van de Koppel, Sr. Enterprise Architect at Capgemini, will take Cloud Expo delegates to the developing world of clou...