lewmur Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 I built my first "home brew" computer in 1978 and I've been in the business ever since. And the most puzzling thing I've encountered is "the Cloud". Why???? It isn't as if storage space was expensive. 4TB for a couple of hundred dollars?? And certainly data retrieval time, even with the fastest optical network, is MUCH slower than over a LAN. I don't care if you are a small, medium or large business, do you really trust your data to a cloud provider that is a much greater target than your individual business?? Oh, I get it!! The cloud provider has a much better "security staff" than my business can afford!! BS!!! The greatest threat to ANY data is access through the NET!!! By definition, any stored in "the cloud" suffers that threat. But there is NO reason why a companies data needs be subject to that threat!! Sure, D***** near every companies data IS exposed, but that is ONLY because of "this is the way its done". Take for example the "power grid". It was interconnected long before the Internet came about. But it is now simply the net that made that interconnection a little easier, and in the process made it possible for a hacker to bring down the entire structure!!! Yes, the "grid" needs to be interconnected. But NOT via a public network accessible to BILLIONS of people. The technical requirements for creating a secure "power company only network", are not at all difficult. OK, we're left with "collaboration". In order for a bunch of people to all have access to a project, it has to be stored where they can all get to it. The cloud?? Not really! Anybody can create a "server", that is tightly controlled, to share such a project. Sure, the cloud might make it easy. But it also makes it MUCH more vulnerable. Are there legitimate uses for the cloud? Sure. But they are "few and far between". It certainly isn't the panacea everyone is claiming. I have a cloud site where I put stuff I want everyone to share. But I'd NEVER put "secure data" there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 http://www.cloud-lounge.org/why-use-clouds.html If your worried about your data, encrypt it before it gets uploaded... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 The "cloud" saves people that are lazy about backups. Some home genealogists have their files automatically saved through Dropbox or other services. Then when the computer crashes and they haven't done a disk backup in the last year they can download it. It's an old people thing. I've also read of one guy who downloaded his family tree after a computer disaster and the download was scrambled and useless. The "cloud" is a nice additional backup for some people. I don't see it as being safe as your only backup, but it is helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 A classic from my old Nocturnal Slacker blog... https://noctslackv1.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/head-in-the-clouds-revisited/ The original article as it appeared at Lockergnome sans images, with comments... https://noctslackvlgarch.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/head-in-the-clouds/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Oh, and a follow-up to the above article... https://noctslackv1.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/dude-wheres-my-data/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 No just for old people. I have 200gb of storage on Google Drive (1.99 a month) and I use it all the time to transfer files to devices, share stuff with others and hold android backups. I also have some important stuff that I need handy frequently but I encrypt that data before it gets uploaded. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Hello, A few reasons come to mind: desire by companies to generate recurring revenue by charging you for storage, processing, etc. desire by businesses to not have to host their own servers desire by consumers to access their data from multiple devices Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewmur Posted January 30, 2016 Author Share Posted January 30, 2016 Hello, A few reasons come to mind: desire by companies to generate recurring revenue by charging you for storage, processing, etc. desire by businesses to not have to host their own servers desire by consumers to access their data from multiple devices Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Of course cloud providers want "recurring charges". That's no reason for businesses to pay them. And those "charges" are one of the very reason businesses SHOULD host their their own servers. But the most important reason is that they shouldn't rely on others to protect their data. In house LANs are MUCH safer than the WAN. As to consumers wanting access to data from multiple devices, I have about ten devices and have no trouble sharing data without recourse to "the cloud". I use Google's Drive once in a great while but only to share files with strangers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Hello, For businesses, hosting web sites and services in the cloud lowers their costs (well, at least their startup costs) since they don't have to buy all their servers, not to mention a server room, power, HVAC, staff to maintain the equipment, etc. that go under capital expenditures. From an accounting perspective, it's pretty easy to understand why businesses do this stuff. This web site, for example, is likely hosted in "the cloud" and not on a server in Scot's office. Like you, I have no desire to put my data onto someone else's servers and pay for the privilege of doing so. But I also suspect we are both better at organizing and backing up our data than most of the general computer-using population. For those others, it's a convenience as well as a backup that they don't do. Of course, a lot of early cloud storage providers went out of business, taking all of their customers' data with them, but that does not occur as often now that the market has matured. Of course, Google and Microsoft still have outages from time to time, which is frustrating, but they usually don't result in complete loss of all data. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Hello, A few reasons come to mind: desire by companies to generate recurring revenue by charging you for storage, processing, etc. desire by businesses to not have to host their own servers desire by consumers to access their data from multiple devices Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Of course cloud providers want "recurring charges". That's no reason for businesses to pay them. And those "charges" are one of the very reason businesses SHOULD host their their own servers. But the most important reason is that they shouldn't rely on others to protect their data. In house LANs are MUCH safer than the WAN. As to consumers wanting access to data from multiple devices, I have about ten devices and have no trouble sharing data without recourse to "the cloud". I use Google's Drive once in a great while but only to share files with strangers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete! Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Imagine if your home was destroyed by a natural disaster for which you were insured... AND The same natural disaster destroyed your insurance carrier's records, including their backup. As I understand it, insurance carriers are required to keep back-ups in more than one location. Other industries, may consider using "the cloud" for the same purpose a wise precaution. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I keep most of my serious backups on my own hardware, but the cloud ie Google Drive is handy to share docs with family. Also if I am traveling I keep a spare copy of insurance and other reservation docs in Google Drive so in case I forget a piece of paper I can retrieve it easily enough. Backing up on the cloud with the amount of data I have is too slow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 It comes down to the almighty dollar. Cost savings of running your apps in the Cloud are orders of magnitude cheaper than running hardware on your own premises when you have to scale out. Even with virtualization, once you require more than a hundred VMs, the server costs start to runaway from you. Don't forget redundant storage arrays and perhaps you have your eye on SSDs? It's 2016, you won't be running gigabit networks so 10G switches will take a bite out of your budget. If you're a startup you won't be able to afford to scale out when you want to ship if you have gone to the cloud. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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