[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Current press coverage may be focusing on exaflops and artificial intelligence, but the IT success story of the decade is still likely to be cloud computing as Cloud Business Continuity struggles to bring much progress.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2952″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” image_hovers=”false” lazy_loading=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]How else have IT departments been doing so much more with so much less? Cloud service providers have done what so many CIOs and IT managers have only dreamed of.
They have packaged virtualisation, automation, replication and innovation together, and put cost reduction in as part of the deal too.
Never before have enterprises and organisations had so much power at their fingertips for so few dollars (well, thousands of dollars). However, there’s just one big drawback.
The drawback isn’t really due to cloud computing. After all, much of cloud computing fulfils its function marvellously well. That includes providing resources for business continuity and disaster recovery, as well as for data archiving.
Just as it would be hard to wreck the Internet, it would also be hard to disrupt or interrupt cloud computing. Both have been designed to offer resilience, redundancy, failsafe operations, and the other good things that help businesses operate non-stop.
However, just as you can send a load of rubbish over the Internet if you want, you can also store and compute a load of rubbish in cloud computing.
Put another way, these resources may be little short of miraculous, but they won’t think for you. If your business continuity procedures or your disaster recovery plans are no good, then cloud computing will simply help you execute those useless plans, faster, more cheaply, but just as uselessly.
Garbage in, garbage out still rules. Only BC and DR based on clear thinking and tested to make sure they will work when needed will do.
Maybe the latest advances in artificial intelligence will lead to systems that will take some of the load off organisations when it comes to getting back on their feet after an outage, but for the moment cloud computing is like so many other things – it’s only good for you if you know how to use it properly.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]