Cloudiness: No Silver Lining
Unless it's for a temporary test or the Internet public to access, outsource to the "cloud" is madness. Even for public facing server loads, the database, financials, stock etc should be in house, only the web server in the cloud.
Otherwise, given the automatic patching, lack of transparency on security and backup and increasing monoculture, a cloud based apocalypse will come.
What happens when all ATMs, POS, Mobile Billing is on Cloud and it "goes down" due to an inept patch of edge routers or load balancing servers or actual servers on a Friday evening?
It's the plot of a believable book, "No Silver Lining" where one character likens the Cloud to potatoes, which allowed massive cheap food production and then population growth, but then famine, not just in Ireland but many countries. Monoculture.
Hence Cloud & Apocalypse icon.
The Cloud operators need to make profit. Right now they are in market acquisition mode, hence the pricing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
