By Steve Cox, Chief Technology Officer at TSG
When the IT Services company 2e2 collapsed into administration I don’t think anyone was prepared for the kamikaze way they handled the situation and especially the fright they gave their customers.
However, I’m more surprised that this type of situation hasn’t happened sooner, and that such a big datacentre provider has been the first to run into trouble given the way in which many go about building their business through such rapid acquisition strategy, funded by bank debt.
Plenty have jumped on the bandwagon, and I’ve no doubt that more will, but what’s happened highlights the risks involved when it seems that many of those involved at a senior level (I’m not pointing the finger at specific people) don’t really understand what’s entailed in being entrusted with such valuable assets.
Being trusted to take care of other people’s data brings with it huge responsibility.
So whilst it’s fantastic to hear that ‘the knight on a white charger’ – in the shape of Daisy Communications – has come to the rescue, and will hopefully save a significant number of the livelihoods that were on the line, there are important lessons to learn.
Trust is essential.
But on the basis of tactics that could probably be described as bullying, at least some level of suspicion is a reasonable starting point for anyone considering transferring their ‘crown jewels’ into this ‘virtual’ environment.
Virtual suggests that something isn’t real; cloud gives the impression that data is floating around in the ether; but datacentres are very real and very physical. They need to be looked after and maintained.
So, it’s perhaps not the short term, quick win, high return investment that some may have imagined. Running a datacentre and providing cloud services is a long-term proposition.
There are some key questions that you should be asking before you make the step into this brave new world (not forgetting that many of us will already be using cloud services either in our business or personal lives, albeit unconsciously). Much of it is simple risk management; planning for the worst case, unimaginable scenario.
What if you want to get your data back out of the Cloud or maybe just move it from one Cloud to another? How difficult will that be? What does your service level agreement really mean? And will the data be in a format that can easily be used by another provider?
Are the people you’re talking to in a position to answer these questions? I suspect that some of those involved during the last couple of weeks weren’t suitably qualified. And if we’re being honest the data in question wasn’t really their first priority.
I hope that it doesn’t come to regulation but I guess that depends on whether the industry adopts best practice or falls into the trap of lowest common denominator.
