Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 16:09 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
In reply to: Restarting the free accounting search by smurf
Parent article: Restarting the free accounting search

This was my point, however clumsily expressed. How many companies have gone out of business from cloud failures? I don't recall hearing of any. But companies go out of business from fires, floods, all sorts of natural disasters, vendor bankruptcies, landlord fiascos, embezzlers, thieves, accidents, and other causes all the time. Every once in a while I read of some company bankrupted by a former employee who destroyed their systems and put them offline long enough to destroy their business.

Worrying about cloud failures is pointless in comparison. The real world doesn't seem to have many cloud problems.

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 17:33 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> Worrying about cloud failures is pointless in comparison. The real world doesn't seem to have many cloud problems.

The real world, however, has many _connectivity_ problems.

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 17:34 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (4 responses)

And how many companies have gone bankrupt from connectivity problems?

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 17:39 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (3 responses)

Let me rephrase that. How many companies have gone bankrupt from connectivity problems caused specifically by cloud failures, cloud lockout, cloud price increases, and other cloud-only failures, as opposed to electrical failures, ISP failures, cables cut by anchors or backhoes, hurricanes, floods, and other non-cloud issues?

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 19:01 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

You're splitting hairs here. What matters is that the cloud service remains available to you, not *why* it is suddenly unavailable.

It doesn't matter if the service outage is caused by incompetence by the provider, bankruptcy, hackers, puntive price increases, popular uprising, road work, solar flares, a rogue ISP in Pakistan pushing bad routes, or a gardener with a shovel. Regardless of the reason, the symptom is the same -- the service is not available, and if you need it to function as a business, you're sunk until it's available again.

One has to plan for outages.

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 19:12 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

But note that "an outage of this magnitude kills the business" is a reasonable plan, if an outage of that magnitude is expected to be a rare enough event. You could, after all, plan for "aliens obliterate the continent I'm currently on", but it's such an unlikely event that there's no point planning for it.

Similarly, a small business may reasonably plan on the basis that loss of a cloud service for more than (say) 5 days kills the business, and that they'll ensure that they're close enough to up-to-date to cope with a 5 day outage.

Restarting the free accounting search

Posted Jul 31, 2017 19:46 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Bad backups have caused many businesses to close their doors permanently. Some statistic I've read before says that something like 2/3rds of companies that suffer major data loss are out of business within six months.

Losing access to data or having data breach is a existential threat for almost all types of businesses. Much more serious then, say, being kicked out of a building.

If you depend on cloud providers too much and don't have a alternative way to retrieve and use your data then you are tying the fate of your business into the fate of your cloud providers. Their accidents can mean you are left dead in the water.

Even the best cloud provider has 'lost accounts'.. virtual machines go dead, customers are kicked out of their own accounts, etc. etc. Stuff happens. Their loss is your business. Your loss could be your business, as well. Your risk is much higher then theirs.

I don't have a problem with cloud services, but it really doesn't change much when it comes to dealing with backups and restores.