To the Clouds... or Not

The big talk in the computer world is "cloud computing," with a big push from Google, Amazon and Microsoft these days.

What is it? Well, cloud computing is all your applications running from servers off site. Data is stored "in the cloud" as well. Cloud computing is like having your word processor in your browser and all your documents stored off line. This is great in theory, until the Internet goes down or the country gets hit by lightning, which happened in Ireland recently.

So you’re thinking, "Well, if my electric went out here I couldn’t get at my data anyway," you would be right, so what’s the difference? There is one big difference—control. Do you trust them, who are they really and are your critical items safe? The answer is, maybe for some, but not for this geek.

I have a better solution: using a backup program and local external hard drives for first level backups, and also an external backup for offsite backups using Carbonite. The combination allows for quick restores from local drives, but in the event of complete loss of data I can go into Carbonite and pull back my offline data. Carbonite is great in that I know they can hold my mission critical information for me, so in the event of a huge "oops" I’ll be safe.

Microsoft 365 and Google Office apps are great for many people who are always on the road, but for many, me included, we simply need a good backup solution. Frankly, a slow Internet connection would make these cloud applications like watching molasses pouring in winter: slow. So with that, local is better in this geek's eyes. What do you think?

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See you all at Montgomery Fest!