[aklug] Re: Dropbox oops

On Monday 04 July 2011, Bruce Hill elucidated thus:
> Having not fully investigated "the cloud" or other "virtualization"
> options, my biggest concern is accessibility of data. For instance...
>
> We took a check to open a new bank account for this new business. The
> woman could not enter our information, because "our computers are
> down", or some such excuse. Turns out they had a power failure and
> *one* of the switches at their data center was not on UPS. It was
> several hours before she was able to access their software again --
> from information she wrote on a piece of paper with a pen, and
> photocopies. :-)
>
> There have been other people we know using offsite apps and storage
> who couldn't reach their data, and couldn't run apps. Because it was
> not local, and the people hosting it were more interested in doing
> damage control to *save face* they had no idea when it would be
> accessible.
>
> I don't want software we use, or data we want to access, stored on
> someone else's computer. What happens when *they* lose it all, or
> *they* decide you don't get your data back at all?
>
> It *has* happened before, and it *will* happen again.

You raise valid points, but many of them apply to self hosted (but
relying on an internet provider), co-located (relying on their data
center), or dedicated hosting (relying on their hardware and internet
connection). Self hosted is VERY expensive if you're paying for a
1MB+ (bidirectional) connection. Co-located is better, but can still be
pricey. Dedicated can be pretty reasonable. Whether the application is
local or remote, downtime can always happen.

If you want your application really local (in-office), then self hosting
is your only option. Then, if you want speedy access for your visitors
on the Internet, you're looking at some kind of (probably one way?)
replication scheme. Or caching the local app data locally, and
sync-ing back up when your internet connection comes back up. All
schemes have their pros and cons.

When it comes down to it, you have to evaluate the provider, their track
record, and their terms of service. How much does down-time cost you?
How much will they reimburse you for said down time? In my job with
CRC Health, we have *never* had unplanned downtime with our dedicated
servers. Rackspace's cloud SLA
(http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/legal/sla/) gives you up to 100% of
your fees back. Which, if you're on a 256MB machine, is only about
$10.95/month, but still. The same type of SLA would apply even if you
were on a dedicated connection (local ISP) or dedicated machine (co-lo
or otherwise).

j

-- 
Joshua Kugler
Part-Time System Admin/Programmer
http://www.eeinternet.com - Fairbanks, AK
PGP Key: http://pgp.mit.edu/  ID 0x73B13B6A
---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.