Before we all get carried away and pick on Cloud Storage as a specific target; perhaps we should sit back and think. It is not Cloud Storage; it is the Public Cloud which is the problem; the most visible failures have been storage related, but let’s be honest; without storage, you don’t have a Cloud Environment.
Cloud providers of Storage, Compute etc need to be held up to the highest standards of availability. You would not outsource your computing environment to Accenture, Cap Gemini, IBM etc without doing your due diligence, or perhaps you would?
Actually, I can think of many cases where people have outsourced various key parts of their business without due diligence; web-hosting for example, lots of SMBs have hosted their websites on random web-hosting companies with very little in the way of investigation. We have simply got into the habit of trusting people and we have accepted the enthusiastic amateur who starts a business.
But this business has got too big and important; but it aint a Cloud Storage problem! Stop throwing bricks at Cloud Storage; start holding the whole hosted computing business to account. Demand SLAs, verify SLAs, check insurances, ask for references, ask for evidence of best practise operating procedures. Be an informed consumer!
However, also accept that if you pay peanuts; you’ll get monkeys. So don’t just look at the cost, consider the value!
