Because nothing is certain 
I’ve been having some problems with my laptop. Big problems. Late last week, as our IT support guru Dan was saving my bacon (again) by fixing my laptop (again), he set me up with Dropbox. If you are not familiar with Dropbox, it is pretty straight forward. Dropbox allows me to upload my files and store them ”in the cloud.” It also lets me keep them synchronized between multiple machines where I have Dropbox installed. Even if I don’t have Dropbox on a machine, I can log in to the web interface and access my files. The day Dan loaded Dropbox on my system I uploaded all my work-in-process folders. With all the laptop problems I’ve been experiencing, I wanted to play it safe!
Lo and behold, the next day as I was working from home my laptop wouldn’t boot up. It is not the first time that’s happened this year and probably won’t be the last. But this time my productivity didn’t suffer. I was able to get up and running almost immediately, without having to run my laptop into the office and have Dan try to access my files and put them on the loaner laptop, (or worst-case, having to locate and restore the files from backup!). I just logged into my home computer, opened Dropbox, and voila, I was up and running. I lost minutes, instead of the hours lost in past outages. Cloud storage had come to my rescue.
I’ve blogged in the past about cloud storage data availability, or more accurately lack of data availability SLAs. Dropbox is no exception. There is a lengthy terms of service page where I got the excerpt below:
Dropbox is Available “AS-IS”
THE SITE, CONTENT, FILES AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, DROPBOX EXPLICITLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT USE OF THE SITE, CONTENT, FILE AND SERVICES MAY RESULT IN UNEXPECTED RESULTS, LOSS OR CORRUPTION OF DATA OR COMMUNICATIONS, PROJECT DELAYS, OTHER UNPREDICTABLE DAMAGE OR LOSS, OR EXPOSURE OF YOUR DATA OR YOUR FILES TO UNINTENDED THIRD PARTIES.
DROPBOX MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT THE SITE, CONTENT, FILES OR SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR BE AVAILABLE ON AN UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE BASIS. DROPBOX MAKES NO WARRANTY REGARDING THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, OR INFORMATION PURCHASED OR OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE, CONTENT, OR SERVICES, OR THE ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, TRUTHFULNESS, COMPLETENESS OR RELIABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE, CONTENT, FILES OR SERVICES.
NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM DROPBOX OR THROUGH THE SITE, CONTENT, FILES OR SERVICES, WILL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY MADE HEREIN.
But even with absolutely no guarantees about availability of the data or Dropbox service, it is okay for my purposes. If the service is unavailable or even crashes and loses all my data, my files are synched locally on my laptop so I can still access them. I am paranoid so everything is also synched with my home computer. I now have three copies of my data when I used to have one.
Cloud storage services are still pretty new. Most are consumer-grade solutions trying to move upmarket and provide business solutions and the SLAs reflect that. Always read the terms of service so you know what you are getting into. But there is some class of data in most enterprises that is entirely suitable for moving to the cloud as it exists today – as my work folders are. And for me, cloud storage allowed me to keep working when my laptop wouldn’t. I expect in 2010 we’ll see a lot of cloud buzz die down and cloud storage vendors or their partners start to tackle data availability issues. For now, I am really really happy that I am a cloud storage user.
Disclosure: I did not set out to write a Dropbox commercial – even though this sounds like one. I don’t do business with Dropbox outside of being a user and the company is not currently a client of ESG.
Related posts:
- How Consumerization and Workforce Mobility are Impacting Storage: Online File Storage and Collaboration Market Landscape Report
- Shhhhh… Microsoft Azure Cloud Storage SLA
- Cloud Storage Enablement: Key to Commercial Cloud Storage Adoption
- Cloud Storage Data Availability
- Breaking News: Microsoft Lifts the NDA on Azure Cloud Storage Services SLA!
Tags: Cloud Storage, Dropbox
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Availability is going to be an important ongoing issue, but I think another is likely to take center stage in the coming year: privacy/security. Do you know who has access to your data at Dropbox, or at any of the other similar services? A lot of them make noise about high levels of encryption for data on the wire, but most are quieter about data on disk, let alone in the servers’ memory. A truly secure cloud-storage solution keeps data encrypted through all of these states/locations, and the provider should never have or need your encryption keys. People are beginning to realize that not all cloud-storage providers follow these rules, that failing to follow them could lead to accidental disclosure, and that such a possibility precludes using cloud storage in many situations.
Thanks for the comment Jeff – For some reason WordPress won’t let me Reply so hopefully you’ll see this. I agree 100% that this is an issue and I expect it will get much more exposure in 2010 now that the cloud honeymoon period is just about up and reality is starting to set in. Dropbox has done a really good job (esp. compared to some well known cloud storage guys that are not nearly as transparent) in disclosing its security and privacy policies.
Highlights from the Dropbox website:
* Shared folders are viewable only by people you invite.
* All transmission of file data and metadata occurs over an encrypted channel (SSL).
* All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password.
* Dropbox employees are not able to view any user’s files.
* Online access to your files requires your username and password.
https://www.dropbox.com/features
You bring up an interesting point about memory – it is not called out but since data is encryptd in flight and on disk it would make sense for it to be encrypted in memory – I’ll have to ping them and ask.
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This idea of Cloud Storage also emphasises your other blog about why ILM hasn’t worked. By the points that Dropbox makes, they can’t see (therfore can’t classify) your data. Since they can’t classify it, it isn’t Information, just blobs of data. If they were to put in technology that allows them to migrate data seamlessly without your knowledge (Global Namespace, Archiving Appliances, Data Migrration Software, etc.) then they have a mechanism to perform DLM Data Lifecycle Mgmt. Put then again, that implies that the data has a termination date. Now I’m sure that in signing up, they are responsible for retaining that data for some number of years after your account expires, and if so, why keep it? It’s encrypted, they can’t read it, your account is terminated, and therefore your passcode to unlock the data is gone as well.
I just wonder what happens if you decide to come back after being gone for 6 months and you want access to your old data.
Sorry Cloud providers, but I’ll take responsibility for my own data (and we aren’t even going to go there on my company’s data) and let you figure out a different marketing campaign to sell an outsourcing service.
Hi John – Thanks for the comment. I am certainly not mounting a marketing campaign for cloud storage services! Just sharing a story about how using Dropbox for my work-in-process saved me some pain.
If you are a regular reader, you may have seen my blog about cloud storage data availability – public cloud storage providers have a long, long way to go to offer the data availability levels we’ve grown accustomed to in our data centers. That said, there is some class of data that is suitable for cloud storage today – hence the Dropbox example. Having copies of my data in the cloud, plus on my laptop, plus on my desktop, meant there was very little disruption in my workflow when my laptop failed. If the laptop failure happened one week sooner I’d have been dead in the water.
But this is just my content – not billings or payroll. The business itself can function without my data. You bring up some excellent points – before business-critical data can be moved to the cloud there are a ton of issues that need to be addressed – data availability, policy engines, security, compliance, auditability – and more. Thanks for pointing that out!
Thanks!
Terri