Ed Leafe wrote: > It's not an either/or decision; instead, you have to consider many > things before deciding how you want to go. > > Some data is so sensitive that you cannot keep it anywhere but on a > privately-owned box on site. In that case, you are completely > responsible for the security of that data, and need to employ people > with the skillset needed to ensure this level of security, and who can > manage the backup and disaster recovery for you. > > A step down from there is when you have sensitive data, such as > customer information, credit card numbers, etc., that you need to > protect, and don't want to maintain an in-house IT staff for that. In > that case, a managed hosting solution, using a dedicated box in a > fault-tolerant data center with a PCI-compliant hosting company (yes, > I can suggest one!) that is maintained by hardware, network, security > and backup specialists, would be an excellent choice. > > Lastly there is data that is important but not sensitive. That is a > great candidate for cloud sites, as it is redundantly stored and > accessible from anywhere; you can make such data public or private; > that's entirely under your control.
Bingo. That's perfect for FabMate and H2Office and some other apps I've got. There's no credit cards, SSNs, mother's maiden names, etc. in some of these apps. > > Here at Rackspace they are promoting hybrid approaches that balance a > customer's needs with the best blend of services, rather than > promoting one particular solution for all. Right. Well said. > > IMO, it's the same question about all outsourcing: if the process is > your core competency, then you do it in-house; otherwise, outsourcing > makes sense. Companies used to all do payroll in-house; nowadays it's > rare to find one that doesn't use an outsourced service for this. The > same trend is happening with computing resources: many non-computer- > centric companies are outsourcing their IT department just as they > outsourced their payroll department. This way they can focus on their > business instead of having to hire an IT staff and maintain a physical > data center for their equipment. Or "near-sourcing" where the outsourcing is using local companies, instead of our Indian and Filipino brothers. ;-) -- Mike Babcock, MCP MB Software Solutions, LLC President, Chief Software Architect http://mbsoftwaresolutions.com http://fabmate.com http://twitter.com/mbabcock16 _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
