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Cloud Computing is here, but should we be using it?

Guest post by: Mike Towle

Article Overview: Is it something really useful, or just hype? Can we trust our precious data to an unknown server, in an unknown location, probably operated by an unknown organization?

Cloud Computing is here, but should we be using it?

Is Cloud computing the next big thing? Well, if you believe all the hype. but you must have doubts, which is why you’re on this web site reading this! With Adminsoft Accounts, I've avoided it. Your accounts data is very important, so I believe it belongs on your PC. I love the internet, but it was never designed for handling distributed applications. As a medium for presenting information, ecommerce, and distributing software, it is supreme. But some large well known software companies are now taking it a step further. Or are they?

Cloud applications can be clumsy, slow, awkward, lack functionality, and not always be available when you need them.

Simply put, Cloud computing is about running your software on some one else’s server (in reality a collection of servers). Your computer becomes little more than a dumb terminal. Decades ago, if you wanted to run business software it ran on a large computer called a mainframe, and you sat at a dumb terminal. Maybe right next to the mainframe, or maybe hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Today, most PC’s are far more powerful than the mainframes of the 1960’s and 70’s, and yet we are being asked to use them as nothing more than dumb terminals, simply to display information that has been processed by another computer somewhere else. Strikes me as a waste of resources. Worse still, it looks like a step back in time, way back to the 1960’s and 70’s!

Was computing by mainframe that great that we want to do it all over again?

I’ve been in the computer business since the 1970’s. I’ve used large mainframes via dumb terminals. Do I want to go back to that? No.

Of course, it’s not quite the same. The Cloud isn’t on a private network, but is on a very public network called the internet. So anyone has access to cloud applications. Which is good. It’s also bad. Because it’s wide open to hacking. The companies pushing Cloud computing are keen to tell us how secure it is. But we all know just how secure on-line systems are, just ask Sony (details of over 1 million user accounts stolen), or Apple/AT&T (details of 180,000 iPad users), or Heartland Payment Systems (a credit card processor, credit card details of 130 million card holders were stolen), or TK Maxx (credit card details of 95 million customers), the list goes on. Google ‘computer hacking’ and you will get over 50 million results.

If I store data on my PC, it’s down to me how secure I want to make it. With the usual anti-virus and firewall software running, it’s pretty secure anyway. I have full control of my data. If my data is on someone else’s server, I no longer have any control over who sees it, where it goes, whether it gets backed up, or even whether I will always have access to it. The company operating the Cloud application could increase their prices for their service, maybe substantially, and I would have no choice but to pay. They could go bust, and their servers go off line. How would I get to my data then?

The Cloud will be the next big thing, but I suspect not for the reasons most people imagine. It’ll be the next big news item when some large Cloud operator gets hacked, or goes bust. Don’t be a victim.

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Article Tags: accounts software, adminsoft accounts, cloud computing



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