.... forget the cloud. Why buy into something and then worry if your cloud provider is reliable, or "too big to fail" or whatever?
Run your own servers and at least you control your own destiny.
My colleague here at ZDNet, David Chernicoff, discusses the sweet spot of the cloud market — small to medium size businesses — and the current lack of standardization or certification on the part of many cloud providers.
SMBs, of course, don’t have huge technology departments that can help evaluate or remedy less-than-satisfying cloud services engagements. Confidence and trust are just as precious as information in today’s economy, and bad experiences may kill off business for providers.
David is talking to the known cloud vendors and their partners, of course. But I also would include any company that is extending online services to networks of partners or customers, or to an internal department that is providing services across firewalls. Companies are becoming both service consumers and providers, and trust and confidence in the uptime, scalability, reliability, and security of services needs to be ensured.
