5 Reasons Why Cloud Contracts Should Scare You Marketing Hype ≠ Cloud Contract. Accepting the terms and conditions on a cloud provider’s website can be dangerous, and often the user doesn’t have the option of negotiation. And face it, nobody reads those click thru agreements anyway (except lawyers). So, what do they say and why should they scare you? Here are my top 5 typical terms: We Don’t Do Security. “Confidential or sensitive data should not be transmitted over the Internet or stored on computers connected to the Internet,” warns a cloud contract. Perhaps this is sage advice, but how many computers aren’t connected to
Natural Disaster
The Disaster Mitigation And Recovery Power Of Cloud Computing In a world where digital connectivity and online presence are a significant part of life and businesses alike, a disaster that disables online services is undoubtedly going to ruin some people’s day, to say the least. Hurricane Katrina and others like it around the world have proven that no data center or server facility is safe from natural disasters and other freak accidents. The effects of such events can at least be mitigated with cloud computing services and technology, making disaster mitigation and recovery easier. Imagine if a bank losses all
Major Cloud Outages of 2012 to Learn From According to a recent report by the International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency, each year a cloud computing service is usually down for an average of 7.5 hours. Companies who use the cloud for running their operations totally or partially were severely affected this year. So, let’s see some of the biggest outages suffered by cloud users in 2012: Microsoft Windows Azure Microsoft Windows Azure suffered an extensive, worldwide outage in February that wasn’t fully addressed for more than 24 hours. The Azure cloud service outage impacted more geographic regions in
Can Natural Disasters Doom The Future Of Cloud Computing? In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, many people are asking whether cloud computing can withstand nature’s wrath. The storm took several major cloud computing companies offline, including Amazon Web Services (at least on the East Coast), and left thousands of websites and online services down for hours—and in some cases days. Hurricane Sandy has definitely proved that the cloud is vulnerable to natural disasters and extreme weather patterns, but that hardly presages the death of cloud computing. All computers and electronic systems are equally susceptible to the same events. Millions of
5 Ways A SMB Can Get The Most From Their Cloud Storage Provider Cloud storage is becoming a way of life for most small businesses. Since cloud storage provides a reliable and safe data storage option for companies who cannot afford to create an in-house data center, multiple carriers have shown up on the market urging users to take advantage of their cloud storage services. That being said, there are still pitfalls to using cloud storage and backup services, especially for small businesses that might not do their due diligence when it comes to researching a new carrier. Therefore, users
Cloud Auditing – Making sure that your cloud works per your expectations As cloud computing get increasingly complex and finds use in core enterprise applications, it it time to pay more attention to auditing. Auditing ensures that your cloud installations works per your expecations. The auditing could be done either internally by your IT or business teams, or could be done by a third party service. Regardless of who does the audit, it is important to understand the different considerations in cloud auditing. Regulatory compliance audit In many industries such as healthcare and finance, there are strong regulations that mandate
CloudSigma Introduces Innovation in Cloud Computing with Solid State Devices (SSDs) Now, Switzerland can add innovation in cloud computing to its list of achievements that include banks, chocolates, cheese and fine watches. The country’s leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider CloudSigma (www.cloudsigma.com) recently set the cloud computing world buzzing by announcing the addition of solid state drive (SSD) storage to its public cloud portfolio. SSD, or flash memory as it is better known, has significantly faster access capabilities and reduced energy consumption as compared to the traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) that sit inside servers powering cloud computing. It’s only a few
Fighting Cancer with Cloud ComputingUsually, articles on cloud computing relate to how it can help in business, and I am no different. Over the last year, almost all of my articles have looked at cloud computing through a businessman’s (gender-neutral here, no offense to the women stalwarts of commerce and industry) lens.Whether it’s cutting costs (See: How Cloud Computing Can Save You Money , Saving Money on Energy by Going on the Cloud and Saving Money on Rent by Going on the Cloud), expanding services (See: How Cloud Computing Helped Netflix Emerge as a Streaming Media Powerhouse ), increasing mobility (See:
