{"id":3457,"date":"2012-12-19T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2012-12-19T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T15:00:10","slug":"cloud-computing-cloud-storage-success-and-worries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/cloud-computing-cloud-storage-success-and-worries\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Computing: Cloud Storage Success and Worries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Public Cloud Storage systems have become overnight successes. \u00a0<a title=\"Gartner on Cloud storage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gartner.com\/it\/page.jsp?id=2220715\" target=\"_blank\">Gartner found that 20 percent of organizations are storing all <\/a>or most of their electronic content in the cloud.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the many available public cloud storage vendors include:<\/p>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\">\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"DropBox.com\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">DropBox<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Box cloud storage\" href=\"https:\/\/www.box.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Box<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"iCloud cloud storage\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icloud.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">iCloud<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Google Drive cloud storage\" href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/#my-drive\" target=\"_blank\">Google Drive<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"LiveDrive cloud storage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.livedrive.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">LiveDrive<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"JustCloud cloud storage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.justcloud.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">JustCloud<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"SugarSync cloud storage\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sugarsync.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SugarSync<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a title=\"Yaniv Bensadon bio\" href=\"www.linkedin.com\/in\/yanivbensadon\" target=\"_blank\">Yaniv Bensadon<\/a>, CEO at FixYa, <a title=\"FixYa on Cloud Storage\" href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-1023_3-57550840-93\/cloud-storage-services-have-their-benefits-and-flaws\/\" target=\"_blank\">said that<\/a> &#8220;Cloud-based file storage is becoming the expected method for file sharing these days, both on personal devices and in the workplace. Such solutions simplify document sharing and collaboration across teams, which is a huge boon for productivity. Still, different users have different needs, and each solution has its strengths and weaknesses.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But all is not right with these services. \u00a0One big question is whether public cloud storage vendors can survive for the long haul and, if not, what \u00a0happens to your documents if these businesses shut down. \u00a0 Beyond that, there are also questions about security and reliability. \u00a0And when data crosses country borders, there are some sticky privacy and regulatory issues.<\/p>\n<p>DropBox is perhaps the most prominent example of the wild success that public cloud storage companies are seeing. \u00a0<a title=\"Forbes article on DropBox\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/victoriabarret\/2012\/11\/13\/dropbox-hits-100-million-users-says-drew-houston\/\" target=\"_blank\">A Forbes article<\/a> reports that a billion files are being saved into DropBox every 24 hours by its more than <a title=\"DropBox 100 million users\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.dropbox.com\/2012\/11\/thanks-a-hundred-million\/\" target=\"_blank\">100 million users<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not known, but it&#8217;s likely, for example,\u00a0considering that\u00a096 percent of those are using DropBox for free, \u00a0that DropBox isn&#8217;t yet profitable. \u00a0 <a title=\"GigaOm on DropBox strategy\" href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/cloud\/this-week-in-cloud-consumers-love-hate-affair-with-cloud-file-share-and-storage-a-rough-week-for-dell\/\" target=\"_blank\">GigaOm<\/a> reports on a presentation given by DropBox CEO <a title=\"Drew Houston bio\" href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/drewhouston\" target=\"_blank\">Drew Houston<\/a> at Harvard where he indicated that rather than revenues, his current priority for DropBox is to grow customer critical mass. \u00a0Houston said that \u00a0&#8220;If people aren\u2019t using it they\u2019ll never pay. If lots are using it we think they\u2019ll come.&#8221; \u00a0At this point, DropBox is able to take advantage of its $260 million in funding, but it&#8217;s not clear what will happen once those funds run out.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<a title=\"Report on Public Cloud Storage\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.fixya.com\/pr\/nov2012\/cloud-storage-report.html\" target=\"_blank\">report by FixYa<\/a> found that the biggest worry that people have about public cloud storage is security. \u00a0An example of potential security problems was a<a title=\"DropBox breach of data\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eweek.com\/c\/a\/Security\/Dropbox-Password-Breach-Highlights-Cloud-Security-Weaknesses-266215\/\" target=\"_blank\"> breach of data that occurred at DropBox<\/a> over the summer where hackers compromised their system, stealing an unknown number of user names and passwords. \u00a0 Other issues reported in the FixYa study finds, for example, Google Drive having folders disappear, and problems reported against file synchronization at many of the cloud storage systems that they surveyed.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the US in particular there are also issues around privacy and compliance with regulations. \u00a0<a title=\"Patrick Flaherty bio\" href=\"ca.linkedin.com\/pub\/pat-flaherty\/6\/689\/699\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Flaherty<\/a>, a partner at Torys LLP in Toronto,<a title=\"Torys LLP in Toronto\" href=\"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/2012\/11\/21\/offshore-data-storage-clouds-security-picture\/\" target=\"_blank\"> told the Financial Post<\/a> that &#8220;I think with the cloud, the interesting implications with it are that it\u2019s truly trans-national in nature. 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Some of the many available public cloud storage vendors include: DropBox Box iCloud<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/cloud-computing-cloud-storage-success-and-worries\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cloud-computing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}