Data, data everywhere: Data in the cloud computing era

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: James Morris.

The Internet, and indeed every business, runs on data – usually lots of it. Thanks to the proliferation of cloud-based services we discussed in the first feature in this series, that data could be all over the place, too. Keeping track of all this data, and ensuring that it is secure, is a major logistical nightmare. As we explained in an earlier feature focusing on Big Data, interlinked information and its analysis is also the next big revolution currently brewing in Web culture. In this feature we examine the issues of data growth, and look at some of the solutions available.

Reaching for the cloud store
In reality, cloud storage shouldn’t be about having some documents on a service like Google Drive and others stored locally, which is clearly a recipe for confusion. It should be about having your documents appear to be in the same place all the time – on whatever machine you are currently using – but also having them seamlessly and securely stored in a remote location as well. You could, of course, standardise on just one cloud service and specify that everyone in your organisation use this for all primary document storage…

But this locks you into a single vendor, which may not offer all the features you need, in particular the level of service to suit a mission-critical application. You have also moved from multiple points of failure – that is, each individual user’s machine – to just one. Placing all your business storage eggs in one cloud-based basket, even if the chosen service is very reliable indeed, presents some major risks…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itproportal.com/2013/03/08/data-data-everywhere-data-cloud-computing-era/