Print
T-Mobile Sidekick owners last week were reminded about the risks of relying too heavily on cloud computing when a massive failure at Microsoft's Danger subsidiary left the handheld owners without access to the Web or their address book for several days.
If that weren't bad enough, after some of the data had been recovered, Microsoft on Saturday told customers that any other missing data may be permanently lost. While it's not uncommon for outages to occur, the potential for permanently lost data casts a dark cloud over, er, cloud computing.
For Microsoft, the timing couldn't be any worse. Next month, the software giant will launch Windows Azure, an operating system in the cloud. Microsoft is quick to point out that the Azure service is built with redundancy in mind and is able to withstand failures in single or multiple nodes, but will that be enough to convince users to put their confidence in the cloud?
Image Credit: letstalk.com
Comments are closed on this article
kzaske
October 12, 2009 at 11:49pm
This marketing tactic failed in the 1980s, what makes them think it will work now? Does anyone remember the Novell keyboard that booted to a floppy? I guess it is true, failure to study history dooms us to repeat history.
Cloud computing ia a rename of the failed server thin client of the 1980s, don't be fooled or stupid. This will cost those using it dearly in the long run.
lhatten
October 12, 2009 at 5:54pm
Shades of the old main frame/ Mini computing. It really doesn't matter if MS has redundancy up the yin-yang, your ISP or router or whatever could go out and you are screwed. I remember when we all had to depend on the IT gods to let us use their systems. That was why PCs were adopted. Not going back - ever.
