How accepting are you with cloud services?

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rayonline

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#142659 19-Mar-2014 23:24

I am using a few cloud services on top of my 2 internal HDDs and a external HDD but I only store meaningless emails, insurance policies,various excel files like electricity cost comparisons, our power consumption,.

I just found out the convenience of cloud printing using phones and tablets but yet to get it. But ... how comfortable would you be with storing information on the cloud and sending items such as credit card statements, copies of passports, birth certificates, company and legal document print jobs to the Google Print Cloud and back to your cloud printer?

matisyahu

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#1009462 19-Mar-2014 23:28

If bandwidth was cheap and plentiful along with the storage online cheap and accessible from my Mac I would move my whole external hard disk into the cloud if it means that I avoid having to worry about backup issues. Right now with the data caps and the claims of 'flat rate' (when in reality they traffic shape the day lights out of the connection) the best I can expect from Cloud computing is some pretty low bandwidth things that don't really excite me that much - Word/Excel/PowerPoint online which is available with Outlook.com accounts.

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freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1009466 19-Mar-2014 23:39

Please use correct forum when creating topics. Moved.

insane

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#1009471 20-Mar-2014 00:05

Given building virtualization platforms for large hosted services is what I do for a living, I'm more confident having my important info saved 'in the cloud' compared to my local storage as long as I understand the infrastructure used, and importantly who is maintaining it.

Just like in the real world, every cloud is created very differently, some built with resiliency and uptime in mind, others with cost being the determining factor.

Just remember, simply having documents 'in the cloud' does not mean you can neglect backing your important info up to somewhere else. Using the real cloud analogy, some burst.

Buzz Bumble

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#1009603 20-Mar-2014 09:31

insane: Just remember, simply having documents 'in the cloud' does not mean you can neglect backing your important info up to somewhere else. Using the real cloud analogy, some burst.

Yep. It's always advisable to have your own backs as well as "cloud" ones (if you choose to use that).

Personally I will never use the "cloud", and with silly data capped and / or over-priced Internet plans it doesn't really work.

Unfortunately it looks like "personal computers" (and even tablets) are going backwards and "soon" they will be nothing but dumb terminals with all the actual storage, application running and processing done on servers via the Internet. :-(

MikeB4

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#1009607 20-Mar-2014 09:38

don't have any issues using mainstream cloud providers and do so. Just won't touch anything owned by Kim Dotcom

Sideface

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#1009645 20-Mar-2014 10:16

The Cloud is a bunch of somebody else's computers at the other end of somebody else's network.

Sideface

Zeon

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#1009647 20-Mar-2014 10:18

As long as you know the setup/reliability of the party, where its being hsoted, backup procedures and access routes then pretty happy.

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Dynamic

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#1012072 24-Mar-2014 21:18

Cloud providers have gone under and/or had data losses in the past. I'd bet the farm some will do so in the future.

I do our daily backups to the Cloud, and weekly/monthly/yearly backups locally. If the building burns, we've got Cloud copies of the important stuff that is 'quite recent'. If the building burns and the Cloud Backup provider's data is corrupt/inaccessible, I would be really peeved off and go back to our week old offline backups.

Actually, our most important Cloud backups are synchronised to my home, and that replica is copied to a different folder, so if the cloud sync is erased for any reason, the 'other folder' has a recent copy.

Everyone's strategy will be different depending on their perceived risk levels and requirements.

Now I'm wondering whether I should be regularly exporting our accounting data from Xero in case they have a very very bad day some time in the future.

Cheers
Mike

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SepticSceptic

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#1013162 26-Mar-2014 13:52

I'm a digital packrat, and there is no way I'd entrust anything important/personal to the cloud.
Too many points of unauthrosed / authorised ingress, services can and will go down, DNS hacking, cloud providers are at the whims of whatever the host country political winds blow.
Will photos of my bucknaked kids ( when they were toddlers) be one day be deemed "offensive" for carriage across the interwebs ?
So, yeah, nah ..

Item

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#1016089 31-Mar-2014 16:31

For a given definition of "The Cloud"

Sideface: The Cloud is a bunch of somebody else's computers at the other end of somebody else's network.

Then the vast majority of important data about "you" is already in it and you don't have much say in the matter unless you want to go off-grid.

The information that banks have, doctors and hospitals, courts and legal entities, Schools and educational facilities, insurers, retail outlets and reward cards, data about your phone calls, your movements, flights etc etc - it is all already stored and shared in a myriad of places beyond your ken and control.

I don't rely purely on any given host to be the sole custodian of my data in case they do drop the ball or go under and to that end I always keep local copies and local backups of anything important but I am fairly relaxed about the fact that all things considered, most cloud providers have a far more secure and reliable infrastructure than my home PC and network can muster.