Cloud Computing is Budget Computing for SMBs

[twinscythe12332]

One of the questions you want to ask yourself when deciding to go onto a cloud is : is it really safe? storing a years-worth of financial data on the web is something you really have to look at versus keeping it on a local server. What happens if it gets hacked? A web hosting company is more likely to be attacked than a random server in the middle of nowhere. the same can be said for a cloud service company.

as for costs, well... that's an interesting point. it is true that you gain access to a server for cheaper, and that the hardware would be upgraded constantly... but at the end of the day, the only thing that is yours is the data... on someone else's hardware... in some remote location that you could never dream of reaching if something goes wrong...

[MarkH]

One of the questions you want to ask yourself when deciding to go onto a cloud is : is it really safe? storing a years-worth of financial data on the web is something you really have to look at versus keeping it on a local server. What happens if it gets hacked? A web hosting company is more likely to be attacked than a random server in the middle of nowhere. the same can be said for a cloud service company.

as for costs, well... that's an interesting point. it is true that you gain access to a server for cheaper, and that the hardware would be upgraded constantly... but at the end of the day, the only thing that is yours is the data... on someone else's hardware... in some remote location that you could never dream of reaching if something goes wrong...

thnx for the input, but i respectfully disagree on both points, security and data availability.

datacenters do hosting for living, hence they are equipped with the tools and skills to protect their assets.. this is all what they have (the data on the servers) and if they don't protect that they would go bankrupt next day.. on the other hand, individuals or small firms will not be safe just because they are small, any machine connected to the web has an IP address which can be scanned and found (no matter how many other servers are setting beside this machine).. this puts everybody at the same level of risk, however, individuals in most cases don't have the skills, tools and time to protect their IT infrastructure because they have their main core to focus on.. historically and statistically, the people who most of the time are affected seriously when a global attack happens are the small fish not the professional companies who have enough time to setup processes and procedures, train staff and ..... I think the point is clear.

that also resembles the situation of keeping your money in the bank (a sort of cloud) or in the safe inside your wardrobe.. using the same logic, the bank is a more obvious target while your safe is in the middle of nowhere.. DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!

Now to data availability, any trust worthy cloud service provider will give you the option to have local copies of your data on regular basis. Although I don't agree with your scenario, but assuming that the provider disappears, all what you loose is the data since the last backup.. which could easily easily happen when you save your data on your local server and it crashes suddenly. BEAR in mind that the likelihood of the server in the datacenter to crash is less due to the procedures of maintenance and the risk is less bcs of the local backup copies, offsite backup, redundancy, and business continuity precautions..

All in all, I keep saying that all of the time, all that is just a form of change resistance that will wither over time..

again, thnx for contributing to this thread..

[Dave A]

Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:

DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!

Depends - Lehmann Brothers should have been as safe as houses

The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server has to accept uninitiated requests to function.

[MarkH]

Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:

Depends - Lehmann Brothers should have been as safe as houses

The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server has to accept uninitiated requests to function.

with all due respect that's totally wrong.. internet requests are routed through a couple of ports (80 or 8080). ANYWAY, let's not bog down the discussion by micro details which would divert the context, the output is that there are globally more than 500,000,000 servers connected to the internet (according to Eric -Google's CEO) and all in all they functioning well.. risks and issues are there always with all types of servers and technologies (including my electric teeth brush) but that doesn't change the big picture... risks of driving cars didn't stop that industry..
Also think of salesforce.com which have been only doing cloud solutions for the more than 5 years with a forecasted income of $1.2B this year..

[Dave A]

Don't mind me - I pick on the wierdest stuff at times. Every now and then it bears unexpected fruit.

[MarkH]

Don't mind me - I pick on the wierdest stuff at times. Every now and then it bears unexpected fruit.

good food for thought though..

[twinscythe12332]

that also resembles the situation of keeping your money in the bank (a sort of cloud) or in the safe inside your wardrobe.. using the same logic, the bank is a more obvious target while your safe is in the middle of nowhere.. DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!.

a bank, while it has all kinds of security, big vaults, etc are still TARGETED. There are a lot fewer people who will say "let's go see what the robertsons have today," mainly because it is not a sure thing that they will hit the jackpot. A bank is sure to have money because that's what it deals in.
The reason why my money is in the bank instead of in a safe at home is because banks have somehow managed to make themselves an integral part of transactions. There is some level of usefulness, but the second you have a problem with the bank, they lock down and you are the enemy.

just with regards to the backup scenario... most of the cloud computing services are offering Software as a Service. Now as much as having backups of data is useful, wouldn't they need recovery plans for when their software service goes down? traditional software approaches would mean you would have the software available (although it may be a little bit older), but if a company can no longer pay the SaaS fees, where do they go from there?

[Dave U]

Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:
The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server has to accept uninitiated requests to function.

I agree with MarkH, but I'm prepared to go into the detail required to address your point.

Attackers don't need to initiate requests from outside your network to get in. All they need is one computer in your network that's been infected by malware, which will then initiate the connection to the attackers. And how easy is it to become infected these days? It seems every month a new bug is discovered that can allow an attacker to install malware on your computer just because you clicked on a website link. Or opened a specially crafted PDF.

Servers aren't general-purpose machines like your desktop. They're dedicated to just the purpose of serving requests and are therefore much easier to secure - no-one is going to open a web page from the server, resulting in the entire server being infected. Of course, this is assuming your provider knows what he's doing, but it's likely that someone who's managed to stay in business for a few years has figured it out.

Now, obviously, if someone's infected your computer, they may be able to access your data that's in the cloud. But the risk is actually compounded when you have all your services locally, because now every other computer on your network becomes a potential attack vector.

I guess the point you were making was that it's not necessarily clear-cut that a cloud service is more secure. I can't disagree. What I tried to show above, though, is that it's not clear-cut that keeping your data locally is more secure either.

[Dave U]

just with regards to the backup scenario... most of the cloud computing services are offering Software as a Service. Now as much as having backups of data is useful, wouldn't they need recovery plans for when their software service goes down? traditional software approaches would mean you would have the software available (although it may be a little bit older), but if a company can no longer pay the SaaS fees, where do they go from there?

As I said to someone else in this thread, if you can no longer afford the cloud service, you probably have bigger problems than just that. Like your electricity being cut off. That's business for you - bad things happen when you run out of cash, which is why we have budgeting. But what if the local server you were running your software on collapses and you don't have the cash to replace it? That's a much bigger expense, and one you probably didn't budget for.

Also, do you realise that many companies charge annual licensing fees to use their software, even though you install and run it on your own computer / server? Or if not a licensing fee, then a "support fee". Most cloud services include support by default, of course.

[Dave A]

Attackers don't need to initiate requests from outside your network to get in. All they need is one computer in your network that's been infected by malware, which will then initiate the connection to the attackers.
...
Now, obviously, if someone's infected your computer, they may be able to access your data that's in the cloud.

Well, that's the crux of my argument right there. There are two roads into the cloud, whereas there's only one into the company network. Once you're compromised, you're compromised.

Or opened a specially crafted PDF.

I asked this question quite recently - last I heard PDFs are still safe

Servers aren't general-purpose machines like your desktop. They're dedicated to just the purpose of serving requests and are therefore much easier to secure - no-one is going to open a web page from the server, resulting in the entire server being infected.

Not quite true. There's this horrid thing called an XSS flaw