For the cloud business model to work, this can't happen
By joe
- 1 minutes read - 194 words[
Microsoft hit by cloudy downtime in US
Two-hour outage for some hosted services
](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/24/microsoft_bpos_us_outage/) One very important leg that cloud stands upon is “I can get to my data and applications no matter what” subject to the availability of networking and clients capable of reaching that data. Sort of like “I can drive to Traverse City, no matter what”, subject to the availability of fuel and passable roads between where ever you are and Traverse City. Violating this fundamental requirement is a “bad thing”&TM; Google has had issues with GMail outages, Document outages, etc. If you build a business case atop these services, assuming continuous access, and that access is no longer available for some period of down time, what will that do to your business model? In the case of some computing customers, milliseconds are real dollars (US currency). In the case of a time constrained bit of business, this potential lack of access is, at minimum, a serious problem. Remember, clouds are supposed to help mitigate risk by being “always on” and “always accessible” with your data, and relatively low risk. You are paying an effective premium for this lower risk.