Article Blog #8: Microsoft, T-Mobile, and the Cloud

I nearly blogged about net neutrality again, but this story popped up and I decided I've said enough about net neutrality for now.

Microsoft, T-Mobile Could Recover Sidekick Data, but Questions Remain

At the beginning of the month, owners of T-Mobile Sidekicks received a nasty surprise. Because of a server failure at the Microsoft subsidiary in charge of the Sidekick, Danger Inc., users found themselves without any of their personal data, including photos and contact lists. T-Mobile froze sales of the Sidekick, and Microsoft reported that there was a chance the data could be lost for good. Both the primary and backup servers experienced a hardware failure, which was close to a worst-case scenario. Now, 16 days after the loss of data, officials at Microsoft and T-Mobile report that the data can be restored, and are in the process of doing so.

The Sidekick data storage is an example of cloud computing, storing data on the "cloud" of server farms rather than on the user's device. Cloud computing has several advantages, and has been gaining popularity recently. However, this incident shows that there are potential downfalls to the use of cloud computing. When data storage is left in the hands of a corporation, they have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the customer's data. The Sidekick stores very little data on the phone, with the majority of customer data being stored on Danger Inc.'s servers. The data loss shows, among other things, a lack of proper fail-safes on the part of Microsoft and Danger. A single incident should not be able to knock out both the main and backup systems, and the fact that it did seems to indicate either a catastrophic failure or very poor design. Cloud computing does have advantages, the greatest being that documents and programs stored in the cloud can be accessed anywhere, as long as an internet connection exists. But placing your data in the hands of a company carries risks. The best way to guard against accidental data loss is to make a  backup of your own, stored on your own system. It shouldn't be necessary, but until a better solution to prevent data loss is proposed, it is.

Additional sources:
 Clouds are nice, but be sure to back up important data

Getting past the fear of computer clouds