[AccessD] The downside of Cloud Computing

There is still some bugs to be worked out in the Cloud environment as the
systems are still in its infancy but every day they become more stable. The
beauty of the Cloud is that regardless what component goes down the data is
synchronized everywhere.

That said, the IT guys job is still secure as data configuration, data
security and backup is still required. Here is a good over-sight of the
Cloud's IT services needed.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/datacenter/will-the-cloud-be-the-end-of-the
-it-department/5825?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101

A business can not run period if their communications goes down unless they
depend on foot-traffic. Even some of the largest grocery store chains, when
they loss communications just buffer their data until they are re-connected
with head office systems. (I worked on a number of these chains and also
know how they were setup.)

I think the Cloud is not a new invention but an expansion of what already
existed and it is just being extended to everyone. Right now it is having
growing pains but in another five years, all issues will be forgotten and it
will be the standard. 

The big plus is that databases of unlimited size and maximum performance can
be created and any small company can expand rapidly without any major
investment is hardware or hardware support...it is like you are now using
your own Google distributive database system. 

It has John Colby written all over it. ;-)

Jim 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 9:53 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] The downside of Cloud Computing

There are several issues with "cloud" computing.  The physical communication
infrastructure 
(connection to the internet) is one and if the access goes down the access
goes down.  If you are 
doing things between two or more physical locations then you are up the
crick so to speak.

A lot of small business however just have a single location so DIS (for
example) can limp along if 
their internet is down precisely because they host their data internal to
their location.  No 
internet required to get at the data.

Another issue is if the data itself is in "the cloud" then there is the
issue of the cloud servers 
going down.  Again if you host your own cloud internal to your facilities
then you have more control.

There are pluses to operating "in the cloud" including robustness,
expandability, third party 
backups.  OTOH we have seen many times in the last year where huge swaths of
the internet went down 
because those swatchs were in a clout (data center) which croaked for some
reason.  It happened to 
Microsoft's cloud as well as Amazon's cloud.

I think we are truly in the infancy of this paradigm and in a decade it will
be really rock solid, 
but it certainly isn't today.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

Reality is what refuses to go away
when you do not believe in it

On 11/2/2012 10:52 AM, Mark Simms wrote:
> I'm contracted at a profitable small business in Delaware.
> The company I contracted thru developed a really slick web app that
bridges
> communications of inventory between the company's remote warehouse and
their
> administrative office.
> They have become completely dependent upon it.
>
> This past week, they were totally operating blind because their Comcast
> business network was adversely affected by the Sandy storm. Because
Comcast
> had monopoly control over their area (Verizon FIOS was not servicing that
> area due to low population density), they could not get Comcast's
attention
> to resolve their connectivity issues.
>
> They lost business as a result of this situation....and there was
absolutely
> nothing that could be done about it.
>
>
>

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