Cloud computing is the new tech de jour for saleable acronyms. It is not new, consumers have been trusting data to outside vendors for a while now. The main difference is that browsers have grown in function that they can provide a rich interactive interfaces for business applications other than read/write/sell. Elliotte Rusty Harold writes that you cannot trust data in the cloud:
You're better off sticking with the tried and true LAMP stack. Traditional payware like Oracle, Perforce, and Microsoft Office had lock in issues, but at least you controlled the software. Vendors couldn't (usually) shut you down just because they decided your app no longer fit their business model. Cloud vendors can, and you have little to no recourse when they do.I have an issue with Middleburg Bank; they only archive six months of financial data before letting it waterfall off into some lost world of backup only systems. Worse, I cannot get them to research my financial records unless I am a customer with them - and I closed the dormant accounts which I know need for tax reasons. They are a small bank in another state to me. I am stuck and a complaint to the better business bureau did not help. My data is there's to do with what they want and I had no recourse at all to get it. I don't understand why banks waterfall data after six months. The company I work for manages to make six petabytes of data available at all times through a web interface. That seems a big number now, but will probably be nothing in another ten years time as archive technologies continue to develop to expand to the new needs of user access. IMNSHO there is no real reason for banks to cut off access to financial histories after six months other than the reason that they can.
