Despite major outage, forecast still sunny for cloud computing

By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer

Published: 4/30/2011 2:27 AM

Last Modified: 4/30/2011 6:14 AM

For many companies, turning to cloud computing services is quick, convenient and cheap. But it's not bulletproof.

Scores of large websites like Foursquare and Reddit learned that the hard way last weekend, when a major outage hit an Amazon.com Inc. server farm near Washington, D.C., and brought down sites hosted there. Despite the outage, Tulsa-area tech workers believe that cloud services, which provide conveniences such as remote data storage and the ability to use programs that aren't stored locally, are still viable for businesses. The event did illustrate the need for caution, however.

Fred Menge of Magnir, a Tulsa information management firm, said outages and breaches can cut off access to remote material without warning. "There are risks associated withcloud computing," he said. "Some of Amazon's customers lost some content." However, he noted that such outages are uncommon, and a failure on the size of Amazon's shutdown is rare. Seattle-based Amazon said Friday that human error set off the outage. An automated error-recovery mechanism then went out of control, and many computers became "stuck" in recovery mode.

Amazon apologized and offered Web services customers a 10-day credit. Andrew Watts, network operations center manager at IT company SpringPoint Technologies in Tulsa, said the level of security and reliability can be widely different betweencloud services providers, since they might have completely different technologies and business practices.

"It all depends on the provider," he said. "You have to read their terms of service on whether or not that particular one will be secure." Brad Thomas, vice president of technology and co-founder of Perimeter Technology, an Oklahoma City-based company that also operates servers in Tulsa, said that while different cloud providers offer different levels of services, on the whole they're prepared to deal with problems quickly. "Generally speaking, we're very secure and very resilient," he said. "The technology vendors out there are building systems that, just to meet regulations, have a hefty emphasis on security and resiliency.

" Still, companies should use discretion, Watts said. He suggested companies ensure that backup copies of the data are in a different location. Menge said companies should check to see if their cloud computing providers have the right conditions and terms in their contracts, to ensure that they'll work hard to protect their clients' information and capabilities. Still, despite its remote nature, cloud computing isn't far removed from regular computing, which has its own risks, Watts said. "Putting your data in the cloud isn't any more risky than keeping your data locally," he said. "You have your own issues like local power outage and data theft through viruses and malware.

" And Thomas said he doesn't expect last weekend's event to put any sort of dent in the demand for cloud computing. Increasing numbers of Oklahoma companies are turning to remote services. "Technology has become so ingrained in the business world, it's become so much more efficient and cost-effective to outsource the more complex components of your technology," he said.