Everywhere you turn somebody somewhere is extolling the
virtues of cloud computing,writesTom
Greenbankof international law firm Pinsent
Masons.
The basic idea - that data and software are hosted remotely -
has many benefits, but its reputation has just taken a
serious knock.
Users of T-Mobile's Sidekick service got a taste of the downside
of cloud computing this month when they went to their cloud-stored
applications to find the data cupboards bare. All their photos,
calendar entries, notes and contacts had vanished.
Though at first it seemed that their data was lost forever,
Microsoft - whose technology is behind the system - says now that
most, if not all customer
data has been recovered.
This was no doubt painful and distressing for people whose only
copies of beloved photos or vital information seemed lost, but
consumer services are often run with a higher tolerance for
error.
But what if the servers had held your corporate data? More and
more companies are entrusting their data and processing needs to
cloud-based providers.
The upsides of the cloud often include affordable monthly fees,
rather than huge capital outlays, and access to bursts of massive
processing power or storage as and when it is needed.
The Sidekick debacle offers some lessons for corporate
customers. They should realise, just as Sidekick users have, that
no operator is perfect. Just as your own IT department can lose
data forever, so can an outsourced service. Major bugs or glitches
you can't predict or prevent; what you can do is minimise the
damage.
That is all to do with the contract you are offered when you
sign up to a hosted service. The standard terms and conditions that
accompany most cloud services are drafted heavily in favour of the
service provider. That should come as no surprise. These agreements
typically exclude all liability for the corruption or irretrievable
loss of data, and they come with almost no guarantees. If the
service fails, tough luck: you'll get service credits - ie, a few
extra days of service for nothing - and that's your lot.
As many cloud services are provided free, or at a low price,
small businesses are rarely in a position to negotiate better
terms. They must take the standard offer or leave it. But if you
are paying big bucks for the service, and especially if you are
entrusting mission critical data to a cloud provider, there are
risks that absolutely must be catered for in the agreement or
managed externally using additional systems.
You are unlikely to persuade a supplier to guarantee
compensation for a data disaster - but you can take steps to
minimise the likelihood of a disaster and its impact on your
business.
Find out how the service provider will protect your data from
corruption. Microsoft made backups of the Sidekick data, but the
failure wrecked the copies as well as the live database. A similar
issue hit Magnolia, a website bookmark storage provider, earlier
this year when its live database became corrupted. Magnolia's
backup process dutifully kicked in and overwrote the only good copy
of the data there was.
So be prepared to demand information on how backups are taken
and how that data is checked for integrity. If you're not satisfied
with the responses, negotiate alternative arrangements or walk
away.
Also find out how you can retrieve your data from the service
provider. You might want to move to a new supplier in the future,
or your service provider might go out of business. Will your data
be in a format that can be migrated easily to a replacement
service? Answering these basic questions before selecting a
provider can save great pain and expense further down the line.
There are many excellent cloud solutions available out there,
but do not be tempted to put your trust in a name without assessing
the risks in the context of your business requirements. It is not
that you should expect something to go wrong - it is that there is
a possibility of it going wrong, however slim. You don't want to be
the one that has to tell your CEO that you signed the business up
to a service with no safety net whatsoever.