It was brought home to me recently, once again, how vulnerable we are to data loss. This time, it isn't a local hard disk crash: it is most likely a problem with a hosting provider's accounting system. In any case, the provider locked my (pro bono) client out for non-payment and scoffed at the client's receipts from PayPal. My client thinks they've paid; the provider thinks they haven't: it's a mess.
I won't post any names at this point, because we haven't yet gotten to the bottom of this. But my client can't get to its public Web site, private Web site, or content management system. If the organization weren't on a summer break, and I didn't have a local backup of most of the information on the site, it would be a disaster.
That brings up the whole issue of cloud computing. If I put my application on Google App Engine, Bungee Connect, Amazon EC2 and S3, or any other cloud, I'm likely to be storing hundreds of GB of data in the cloud. It's basically the same problem as with any hosting provider, only more so.
What happens if Amazon or Google decides they don't like my large-scale client, for some reason known only to themselves? What options would my client have? What guarantees continuity of service and data integrity?
What do you think?
Posted by Martin Heller on May 30, 2008 01:05 PM
