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 with cloud computing ," he said. "Some of Amazon's customers lost some content....