Did you know that if your cloud service provider shuts down, there’s no way to move your data to another service provider?
How crazy is that? It would seem that while the whole concept of cloud storage was evolving, that would be one of the top customer requirements cited. Sure, it’s being worked on by SNIA in the form of a Cloud Data Management Interface, but one would think that the lack of such a standard will stall cloud storage adoption by businesses large and small. SNIA’s standard “would allow providers to migrate customer data from one vendor’s cloud to the next — a move aimed at alleviating vendor lock-in” according to Lucas Mearian who wrote a great article on Computerworld on the topic titled, “What happens to data when your cloud provider evaporates?” In his article Lucas quotes Gartner research analyst Adam Couture, “All of these things are coming together … to give cloud storage providers a black eye. Anyone who was on the fence about cloud storage may be off of it by now.”
Right now, it seems like a rat race of vendors fighting for position in cloud computing. There’s the traditional big OEMs like EMC, Tier 1 Service Providers like Amazon, Tier 2 providers like Savvis, Telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T, and a slew of smaller upstart providers all fighting for position. All trying to figure out how to define and meet customer requirements.
Until customer requirements are 100% defined and met with standards like SNIAs Cloud Data Management Interface, cloud computing will not be the standard operating procedure, many expect it is destined to become.
Agree?
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image by: http://amanzi-reflections.blogspot.com
When your data is on your own server, Ownership is a lot clearer. And Access to your data comes from your machine. With the cloud it is “Trust Us We won’t Look at your data”.
Agree that SNIA’s CDMI migration capability is a very good thing. We need these standard and good ways to move data around without tromboning over a slow network. If we can all agree on CDMI on the count of 3 and get it up and running and popular, let’s do it!
Before bashing the cloud too much, let’s not forget that the amount of data that is not backed up in a way that a fire or flood will make it cease to exist is staggering. This doesn’t make it right to not have a good solution to move data to a healthier provider, but it does suggest that the right answer is probably in the cloud, and not in hunkering down in your own data center.