Hi Jan, On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 04:28:14PM -0000, Jan Henkins wrote: > I think I'm getting old, since I read this thread with a growing sense of > horror. If you outsource the total gamut of your IT infrastructure in a > SaaS sense (fancy name for cloud-space), are you really saving in the long > run?
I'm not sure that anyone is recommending "[outsourcing] the total gamut of your IT infrastructure in a SaaS sense" though. Clouds and SaaS have existed for a lot longer than the names themselves have, and when used appropriately can save a lot of money vs doing it yourself to the same standard. > On Fri, November 12, 2010 15:56, Imran Chaudhry wrote: Careful with the attributions; I wrote the below, not Imran. :) > >> In all honesty if my needs were great enough that just spreading my > >> encrypted data over three or so different storage providers wasn't > >> enough then I would be tempted to build it myself, using the cloud > >> storage services directly. > > This would be at a pure minimum, a "reduntant" setup with three seperate > cloud storage providers. All of it with high levels of encryption. And > redundant UPS's for each UPS! :-) You have decreased visibility into how any of your providers manages their own risk, so you most likely won't know, for example, anything about their UPSes. The point is that with enough redundancy, you are isolated from failure at some small number of your suppliers, and a below-par supplier can be changed a lot easier. You have to decide what parts of the process are too important to trust to another entity and take those in-house, accepting that it's most likely going to cost you a lot more to do it than some other entity which resells the same thing on a vast scale. > Yes, off-site storage is cool, and if you use it in the right way, it's a > great way to safeguard your data. But Saas? How are you going to access > your data if all you have is a single candle burning in the middle of the > room? I hope you have multiple contingency plans ready. I have to admit > that I did not have time keeping up with the technical niceties of the > specific SaaS offerings out there, but I cannot help but viewing it with > intense distrust. > > Brrr, horrible thought, not being able to get to your data. I think I'll > have a sleepless night tonight... :-) Building something around a Software as a Service model doesn't imply locking all your data up in some single remote location. Human beings do tend to blindly trust their data to the remote black box, and then may experience discomfort if the remote black box breaks. But it is hard to see this particular human failure mode as a condemnation of all SaaS concepts. As in everything we do every day, you have to manage risk.. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Q. How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb? A. Only one - who gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to an earlier joke.
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