Latest cloud storage hiccups prompts data security questions

The pitch from providers of hosted storage services sounds enticing. Instead of what these provider call the inherent risks in using hard drives or DVDs to store data, users are better off paying pay a small fee and backing up data in the cloud. Cloud storage providers pledge that putting valuable data into their hands is like keeping money in a bank.

However, cloud computing vendors continue to be plagued with periodic shutdowns and losses of customer data. Just last week, cloud-based storage service provider Carbonite Inc. filed a lawsuit charging that faulty equipment supplied by two hardware providers caused backup failures that caused it to lose data stored for 7,500 of its customers two years ago.

The problems have prompted some users and analysts to wonder whether "cloud computing" storage poses an unacceptable data security risk, particularly because users are depending on unseen infrastructures holding enormous data vaults that could easily attract the interest of hackers and electronic terrorists.

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The pitch from providers of hosted storage services sounds enticing. Instead of what these provider call the inherent risks in using hard drives or DVDs to store data, users are better off paying pay a small fee and backing up data in the cloud. Cloud storage providers pledge that putting valuable data into their hands is like keeping money in a bank.

However, cloud computing vendors continue to be plagued with periodic shutdowns and losses of customer data. Just last week, cloud-based storage service provider Carbonite Inc. filed a lawsuit charging that faulty equipment supplied by two hardware providers caused backup failures that caused it to lose data stored for 7,500 of its customers two years ago.

The problems have prompted some users and analysts to wonder whether "cloud computing" storage poses an unacceptable data security risk, particularly because users are depending on unseen infrastructures holding enormous data vaults that could easily attract the interest of hackers and electronic terrorists.

Michael Peterson, president of Strategic Research Corp., a market research firm in Santa Barbara, Calif., said he avoids using hosted storage systems because he doesn't trust them and because of the long-term costs. He noted that he once used Amazon.com's S3 hosted storage service to help his son set up a business venture. But once the venture turned to on-site storage systems once it could afford it, Peterson noted.

"Amazon is successful with small businesses, entrepreneurial startups -- people who don't want to invest in their own storage," he said.

Unless it's absolutely necessary, "You're a fool if you put personally identifiable information out there," Peterson added. "Vendors in this space have to be putting their trust message out there and try to prove it. But as a consumer, I'm not ready to trust again. And, I'm a suffocated user. I've been using this stuff for years."

Peterson also noted that some customers can become confused because vendors describe "cloud computing" in different ways. "Everybody wants to call what they're doing cloud," Peterson said.

Nonetheless, several major vendors offer hosted storage products, including storage vendors Symantec Corp. and EMC Corp., which offer the Norton Online Backup and Mozy products respectively. Several small service providers offer similar products while industry giants Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. pursue their own hosted storage models.

Despite the promise of using the compute cloud to store data, incidents of hosted sites going down or losing data are beginning to pile up.

For example Amazon's S3 service was offline for several hours in February, which wasn't first time the service failed. Also, Xcalibre Communications' FlexiScale service suffered an 18-hour outage last year, and The LinkUp storage service shut down in August after losing access to unspecified amounts of customer data.

"You can't trust backup and storage in general," said David Friend, CEO of Boston-based Carbonite, in an interview with Computerworld today. "It's not just the cloud. Look at all the tapes that have been lost by people like Iron Mountain where they've got the stuff on a truck and the [driver] goes in to get his Dunkin' Donuts and comes out and the truck is gone."

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