Cloud Computing is Budget Computing for SMBs

[tec0]

Well I don’t live in the past and the point of my post was is that you want access to your info if something goes bad. And if you look at the South African business system things can go bad easily. Secondly benefits of cloud against the costs of internet and its reliability at this point in time is not bad but ask anyone with a Telkom line it is far from trustworthy mobile internet is also limited to the amount of money you spend on it.

So yes you don’t need to do backup or do software upgrades and yes you have a powerful security system at this point in time but, there is a little something you missed. See if my line goes down because of cable theft and I need my books or info I can’t access it. Now if you take that into consideration you may find that the infrastructure that needs to support the cloud system may not be adequate.

[MarkH]

Mark, what sort of broadband speeds do you get in Egypt?
And at what sort of cost per Gig (might be an idea to put that in Euro's or USD so that we could relate more easily)?

Cairo: you can get up to 16MBPS for $90 p.m , mine is 4MBPS and I pay $50 p.m
Dubai: i have 8MBPS for $60 p.m

[Dave A]

And that would be "as much as you can eat" deals? (As in - there isn't a monthly usage limit)

[MarkH]

And that would be "as much as you can eat" deals? (As in - there isn't a monthly usage limit)

yes. but i'm sure i don't look like an alien here.. there are faster packages with unlimited bandwidth for cheaper prices (plus minus) are all over the place in Europe, America and the Middle East (these are the places I can talk about).. and ISPs are working all over the world to speed up the internet (e.g. Turkey is working on providing mobile phone users with 42MBPS connections, and US is considering offering 1GBPS connection for home users).. this is very similar in the revolutions in improving processing power, expanding memory, increasing storage, etc... this is why I do believe that cloud computing is the way to go SOON, of course people's ability to digest root changes varies, but that doesn't change the obvious facts/advantages of moving forward..

[Dave A]

Mark - up there in North Africa you're still way ahead of us in terms of both speed and pricing.

[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.