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| Are you prepared for the loss of your cloud data? |
I recently ran across a blog
by Matt Winer regarding his experience with cloud computing that I felt was
really important to share. His story is a warning to all who use cloud servers to store their data and
brings about some key questions.
What happens when a cloud server goes down; what happens
when your whole online world (pictures, blogs, etc.) is lost ? What happens when the cloud
expels all it energy and, the cloud is exhausted?
It is human nature to expect everything will be 'OK' when
you post to the cloud, but it is not human nature to back up your work further.
Winer gave users the ability to download and back up their data. Very few of
them took advantage of this functionality. Relying solely on presumption that
the cloud will always be there is a bad idea.
Luckily in Winer's case, he was able to get everybody their
data after a massive system failure. For the rest of us; without someone to
monitor the chaos; what will become of us and our data when the next cloud goes
down?
Now, I am an IT guy so this shouldn't come as a surprise: I
figure if you backup on the cloud and on your hard drive you should be pretty
safe.
Am I wrong?
I don't think you have to proactively act on this
information immediately (but it might not be a bad idea to get the process
started). I don't think for a second that no one has thought of such issues or
that there aren't already good systems in place. However, in the end, many of
us are relying on a 'constant' that is proving to be less than constant. With
no one to monitor it or make sure it is up and running 24 hours a day, is the
cloud truly safe?
Of course every company that stores your data and life's
work on a server has backup right? You know it's always good practice to backup
your data, but you don't.
Don't be fooled. Once, a matter of semantics changed my life
for two weeks: I said I wanted to cancel an upgrade
order on my current server contract. I had found a faster server from
another provider with better software for less money. A human at my host
decided to 'cancel' (delete) all of my accounts and all of my backup servers.
The end result was two weeks of frantic repopulating of a new site from bits
and pieces I had saved in various folders on my hard drive and some cached
pages that Google had not re-indexed yet. I learned my lesson.
Back it up my friends.
What you assume is going on behind the scenes is not always
the case.
If you rely on the cloud, you are relying on someone else to
protect your treasured 'stuff.' This is why we buy gap insurance on cars,
why we buy umbrella insurance, and it’s why you should backup your 'stuff' in
the cloud. Back it up or be prepared for the consequences.
Back up your data yourself because you never know what could
happen on the other end of the cloud. I say this as an IT staffing professional:
Back it up and be safe; because you never know who or what is going to fail
next.
On your PC or on an external hard drive; it doesn't matter
where you back up your cloud data. You put a great deal of thought, time, and energy
into creating your data. Isn't it something worth preserving?
