Lawyer Bait

The views expressed herein solely represent the author’s personal views and opinions and not of anyone else - person or organization.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Move along, nothing to see here...

It is being reported that Sidekick data has been recovered/restored, yet I have yet to see a forensic breakdown of what happened to get it back.

I was perusing a pice this morning at SYS-CON's site - http://wireless.sys-con.com/node/1143427 that discusses the 'lessons learned'.

#1 is The cloud is not redundant. Um, duh. As I pointed out in my last post, you cannot expect technology to do something it is not aware of (like backups, setting restore points, etc). Assuming that the cloud is anything but computing and storage resources made available to rent, is foolish. You still need to design how the cloud will work for you.

#2 Know your vendor - I don't know about you, but when I think mobile phone for $100, I am not thinking about the systems used to support the phone, the network, or anything else. I expect that I will be able to use the device and the network in a reliable fashion. I do not expect my vendors to cover my ass when it comes to backing up stuff that is important. If it's important, I back it up, If not, I am prepared to lose it, even if I lose it beacuse of laziness.

Anyway you get the picture. The cloud is not the Government that will magically develop processes and solutions to make up for our lack of discipline, awareness, or any other character fault.

Take responsibility and if It's important, make a copy. If it's really important, make two copies...

Monday, October 12, 2009

Danger - Sidekick data gone...

Microsoft stresses that it wasn't its own technology to blame in the Sidekick data loss, but rather Danger's technology, which the Redmond company inherited when it acquired Danger in 2008 for $500 million.

However, the embarrassment for Microsoft comes as there is no apparent backup of Sidekick users' data, according to a report from HipTop3. It is also unclear whether Microsoft will be able to recover any of the lost customers' data.

Bu the unfortunate coincidence is Microsoft's launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 devices last week, which in association with this weekend's Sidekick data loss could translate into reduced customer trust from potential Windows Phone buyers.

*******
This event got me thinking - Is the Cloud only as strong as its weakest link?

In this day and age of Cloud computing, value of data, who owns it, what we give up as users, back ups, failover, etc. etc. It blows my mind that this stuff happens. It kind of reminds me of a time several years ago when data breaches were making headlines, and the rush was on for DR solutions. And security solutions. And privacy solutions. And the list goes on. And here we are. Again.

Whether or not the Sidekick user data was in a cloud or not, if it moves to the cloud 100% then does this issue go away? What do we gain? What do we lose?

Even with the promise of cloud computing and the movement of (and one could assume) copying of data in multiple places, what happens when something fails? Do We fail like we are falling down an escaltor or an elevator shaft? (Jim Heaton quote)

Is it data? Is it process? Where is the root cause? Sounds like in this case it was 'technology'. Not sure what that means, but I will bet that the corrective action is now a funded project that was once an afterthought and maybe an outright gamble.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a T-Mobile customer (and have been for 6 years) and I use a Blackberry. I keep some data backed up in multiple places, some data not at all. Makes me wonder if I have calibrated the value of my data correctly. Have we all? Hmmmm.