The Cloud is Too Big to Fail? Guess Again

The Cloud is Too Big to Fail? Guess Again

Oct 18, 2011 | SMB Technology

We live in a wonderful time. A new invention is changing the way we perceive the world. The grass is greener. The sky is bluer. Birdsong sounds sweeter. Trumpets are hailing a new carefree era with butler robots catering to our every need.This new technology is going to revolutionize our lives in ways that we can’t conceive of yet. I’m talking about, of course, The Cloud. Hyperbole aside, doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re being sold a bag of beans? The experts would have us believe that the cloud is the Be All, End All of IT architectures. It promises to deliver ubiquitous access to business tools and information with an economy of scale that will revolutionize the IT industry. According to Gartner’s 2011 CIO Survey, cloud computing services are the top priority for IT organizations this year. Gartner goes on to predict that while today only three percent of CIOs have the majority of their IT environments running in the cloud or on SaaS technologies, that number is expected to jump to 43 percent over the next four years. But what really is the cloud? Should we trust our data to vendors who promise to secure our mission-critical information? What exactly is in the fine print in those SLAs we sign? Will the expanse of the Internet ensure that the cloud will never fail? Is our data truly safe? The fact is that we’re all are facing a radical consumerization of IT. Users are increasingly accessing business data, applications and email on mobile devices–often their personalhardware–making it hard to track and manage business data. With cloud applications managing...
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