Are You Doing Business In The Cloud?
All of my email addresses are directed to my Gmail account. Most of the documents I need on a daily basis are on Google Docs. I’ve been slowly moving towards living in the cloud. In a way, this has been very good for me: I can access just about everything I want, whether I’m in my office, at someone else’s office, a friend’s house or anywhere else with an internet connection. But there are downsides. If something happens to one of the services I use, I’m up the proverbial creek — and the same is true if something happens to my internet connection.
Business In The Cloud
Keeping personal data in the cloud is one thing, but uploading the information you rely on to earn a living is an entirely different matter. The benefits are huge. Just the ability to pull up files while visiting a client’s office can make the difference in landing an account. But risks go hand in hand with those benefits — the likelihood of something happening to your data in the cloud is about on par whether it’s personal or work-related, but the consequences can be far more complicated.
So far, it’s been difficult to determine whether the risks outweigh the gains. Working from the cloud can be incredible: with just a netbook, you can often access everything you need for a project from half way around the globe. A business will to upload files to the cloud can make it much easier to work with telecommuting employees, along with clients who may need easy access to information. It doesn’t hurt that many online applications come with a price tag that makes the cost of the software many companies currently rely on absolutely laughable.
Personally, I’ve found that moving my own work into the cloud has made a major difference in my ability to work on projects. I can work just as easily from a coffee shop as from my office. There were no barriers to me moving my work into online applications, though: if I had needed a supervisor to sign off on my choice of applications and whether they were online, getting to the point that I am now might have been almost impossible.
Getting The Okay
Depending on who you work for, moving into the cloud may not be a simple matter. If you’re self-employed, you must reassure yourself that your information will be safe in the online applications you plan to use. That sort of reassurance can include:
- Security: If you’re placing any sort of sensitive material online — financial information or files your competitors would be very interested in looking at — you’ll want to double check that each application you use has sufficient security measures in place to protect your data.
- Backups: In the event that something happens to your data online, you’ll want to make sure that you have a backup in place — even if that means manually downloading your data on a regular basis. Remember, not even Gmail works perfectly every day.
- Contingency Plan: Making sure that you have access to your information goes beyond creating a backup. If you’re planning a presentation that relies on a file you’ve saved to an online application, for instance, have a contingency plan in place in case you don’t have internet access or you’re not on a computer with the right software to use it.
All that is necessary just to make sure that you’re able to work in the cloud effectively. If you’re adding an employer to the equation, though, things get more complicated. At a bare minimum, you’ll have to convince your supervisor that your idea to work in the cloud is not only effective but will clearly help the company.
When it comes to working in the cloud, the “better to beg forgiveness than ask permission” approach seldom works. If you’re thinking of taking even a small amount of your employer’s information into the cloud, I’d recommend against it. Some employees sign contracts specifically stating that they will not share information with a third party — which can include Google Docs. Others get issued a company handbook stating essentially the same thing. That means uploading information to the cloud could constitute a firing offense if something goes wrong.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t convince your higher ups to move into the cloud, though: it just means that you’re going to need to be able to reassure them on issues like security and backups before you even think of uploading one file.
Are You In The Cloud?
Have you already moved into the cloud? If so, it would be great if you’d be willing to share in the comments how you addressed the issues that go with keeping important information in the cloud. Personally, I stick with a handful of trusted sites, and I still have a few pieces of information I don’t put into the cloud. For instance, I keep my financial records on just one computer in my office.
I do know some people who simply aren’t interested in moving any of their work into the cloud, for one reason or another. If you fall into this category, it would be great if you’d share your comments on why, as well. Is it due to one of the concerns I listed above, or another issue altogether?
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Thursday Bram
Thursday Bram blogs about a variety of topics, from personal finance to small business. She is the author of an upcoming book on the tools and tricks you need to build a career you can take with you during long-term travel. More information about Thursday and her book, Working Your Way Around the World, is available on her personal site, ThursdayBram.com.
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Comments
Colin Wright says on May 12th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I’ve been progressively moving toward a life in the clouds for a while…Gmail is definitely my information hub, while social networks act as my online coffeeshops.
The biggest barrier for me has been that Adobe and Apple software are still better than their (usually free) online counterparts, but every few months, the cloud-software versions get much better, so I imagine in another year or so, I will be able to safely transition over to completely cloud-based, free imaging apps.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted says on May 12th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Just last week, I finally, finally upgraded from Hotmail to Gmail, and now I’m starting to embrace la vida Google with some docs and my calendar. (In fact, a blog post on it will be published on Thursday.) I’m entering the cloud, but I hope I can still keep my feet on the ground. :-)
Luigi says on May 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I’ve written several articles on cloud computing, also called Software as a Service, largely for trade magazines. You can find some at http://www.LuigiBenetton.com and plugging the terms “SaaS” and “cloud” into the search field at the top right.
On my end, I back up files to SugarSync, which I find very cool. Aside from files in the cloud, I have backups on two other computers and I can access, read and email them on my iPod Touch.
I also subscribe to MobileMe, which I originally thought I could use as a SygarSync. No dice there – its backup app is useless, though it does offer a few other things that make it worth the subscription.
I may start billing using Freshbooks, which recently introduced the concept of “invoice networks” (apologies, Mike, if that ain’t quite how you described it to me, but it makes tons of sense regardless).
Google Docs is a great app as well – for online collaboration, that is.
Vincent says on May 12th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Hi Bram,
I have not thought about moving my projects to online services such as Google Docs before. But reading what you had wrote here let me think otherwise. Sometimes I can’t do my work when I am over at my friend’s house but if I were to move my work online, I will be able to do my work anywhere and anytime. Thanks for sharing the idea.
Cheers,
Vincent
Jeff D says on May 12th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Hi Thursday-
My name is Jeff and I work with the MSFT Office Live Outreach Team. Just out of curiosity I am wondering if you have ever heard of Office Live Workspace from Microsoft? There are certainly many benefits that this service offers aside from the benefits about storing files in the cloud as your article outlined. One huge advantage is compatibility. Because a majority of business use Microsoft Office, Office Live Workspaces are inevitably compatible with all of the Office suite file formats. This is huge for business people who are worried about online storage services messing with formatting.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and thanks for blogging about the cloud!
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
Andy says on May 12th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I made the move to the cloud earlier this year and is the greatest thing I have done in a while.
If something happens to my laptop its not a big deal as I don’t have much on there…its all online. This makes my laptop faster and gives me the ability to work on a cheap laptop aswell.
I currently use Gmail, Google apps, google docs, Google calendar, Base Camp and Invoice Machine…along with backing work onto my server that pretty much allows me to run my business from anywhere in the world
Great article!
Lilx says on May 12th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Hi. I’m administrator of a small company (7 people) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I’m trying to gradually put every information of the company online, in the cloud. Since i was hired, in Feb I made a free account on Google Apps for your domain (up to 50 accs free). So we changed from a weak webmail host to Gmail. We did not have an agenda or calendar system, and Google Calendar changed improved our productivity a lot by sharing our schedules.. Google Contacts is missing a basic feature.. share/sync all the contacts with all users of the domain (it only shares emails from added contacts).
Already moved lots of spreadsheets to Gdocs, this month I’m going to upload the balance sheet, with all the transactions made. In the beginning I had the idea to digitalize all the invoices, cupons, certificates, lettters that we receive, converting to PDF and putting inside Gdocs also, but I remembered that they have a limit on number of files to upload, so what I’ve done is upload all this stuff to a Flickr Account, I bought a Pro Acc ($25/yr) and we are free to upload as many scanned images as we want – for private view of course.
Google and Flickr (Yahoo) are services that I trust to upload such content. I’m luck to have a boss that shares some of my vision of the end of paper and the internet as platform for the business, although his naturally a little concerned with the integrity of these services and whether Google/Yahoo will see our stuff. Even with privacy terms, even if they did look our docs without permission, I don’t see the point for it.
I believe in transparency and rightness. Trust is all about that.
I also believe that in future we will be connected every time, everywhere.. we don’t depend on the internet, we are part of it.
It’s not a product/service, it’s an enhancement of our intelligence, productivity and money.
Yogesh says on May 12th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
I keep all my data in the cloud.
Security should be the major concern while doing business in the cloud. One could use:
-Encrypted TCP port forwarding.
-Ssh protocol for bi-directional TCP traffic forwarding across encrypted connections .
-VPN encryption.
-Application level security.
You are so correct in saying that “better to beg forgiveness than ask permission”.
molds says on May 13th, 2009 at 2:10 am
I had never see this software,because I am a chinese,does it a system soft? or like a photoshop,anyother?
YT says on May 13th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Well I’m working on this killer search engine with my mates, we share our project data using Gmail and GoogleDoc. Strangely enough, whenever we’re about to release any innovative function Google beats us to it.. I wonder why…
Maurice W. says on May 13th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Good article. I think that a lot of people simply have not thought of the benefits of moving their work to “The Cloud”.
On the other hand… I’m not sure a lot of people are aware of what “The Cloud” really encompasses. But it’s just like real clouds… basically they are anywhere you go. So the idea of ‘cloud computing’ is that your data/application will be ‘anywhere you go’.
With that in mind (this is particularly true for employers), you don’t have to use a 3rd party such a Google or Dropbox – but you could just make your own. This may not be true for smaller companies who don’t have the recourse, but is true for larger ones. While creating your own in-house solution is by no means the quickest, it solves most (if not all) of the security concerns. But convincing your boss to create a new project is another story :-p
I feel like the big thing people should take away from cloud computing is that data is not stored locally. I’ve tried to convince friends and family to use more cloud-based items and the most common reply is “but I have a laptop. My data is always with me anyways”. But what happens when you don’t have that laptop or it dies? Even if you just use ‘The Cloud’ as a contingency plan it’s still a great idea and will bring more benefits than horrors in the future.
Maurice W. says on May 13th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Oh, and this is directed to what Yogesh replied with.
While all your suggestions are great… they only protect against one thing: man in the middle attacks. A BIG security concern that many people fail to notice is the Accepted Use Policy (AUP) and/or End User Licenses Agreement (EULA) that many of these 3rd-party services have.
Take fore example the popular GMail service. They clearly indicate that they scan the content of your e-mails for key-words so they can provide (minimal) targeted/relevant ads to you. That may be a concern to many, since we have no way of ensuring that they are not doing anything else with that data.
Other companies (mostly backup services) indicate that if they are ever audited that they will disclose your data (and identity that is linked to that data) to particular officials. This is another concern many companies have.
It all comes down to confidentiality of your data. Are you actually the only person who has access to it?
YT says on May 13th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Unless I can be certain that my data is encrypted on MY computer before it’s sent out and stored in the cloud so that ‘man in the middle’ and the hosting company cannot read it, I would not trust the cloud.
John Smith says on May 13th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I have Gmail, but I mainly access it using a standard mail client.
I find the features of Google docs isn’t up to par with what you get in an offline app, and most online apps aren’t responsive enough. As well, I have a netbook, but that doesn’t mean I’ll have internet everywhere. I don’t have 3G, and there’s no wifi in the park, on the airplane, and I don’t wish to pay for wifi at Starbucks. Working offline I can take my work anywhere.
I can also access my home machine anywhere using Remote desktop. Those looking for a more turnkey approach can look at stuff like Windows Live Mesh, Dropbox, Hamachi, etc.
This lets me access stuff online, but I ultimately own control of my data, and I don’t have to worry about the provider going out of business, though I can’t rely on the internet connection always being good. Look at how many people get their knickers in a knot when Gmail is down.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Which is why I sync my documents on my home network using Synctoy before / after a “field trip”.
Time Saving Sites says on May 13th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
This is a good heads-up on risk. The objection John raised about no wi-fi on airplanes is going away as we write (AirTran is first to have it fleet-wide). I have a number of items in the cloud but other things on my laptop. I think my main motivation, aside from the obvious remote access, is just to break the cycle with Microsoft. I don’t want to upgrade my MS Office suite again — ever — if I don’t have to.
Tangient: I’m using Open Office more and more for work because Word formatting is such a pain. I export to Word or PDF when I’m finished. It’s just easier.
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Sid says on May 15th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I agree with what John Smith says. The offline (MS office) versions are much more feature rich and faster than Google Docs.
My main concerns are security and privacy.
There’s no assurance your data will be safe – won’t get corrupted or lost. If its a free site and you fail to login in for months or your space is exceeded its an issue. Minor one but you still need to keep it in mind.
The other issue is that if the site is hosted in a country other than where you live, and the company hosting the site is required to disclose all information to the appropriate authority there – all your data could be exposed, irrespective of whether there is anything there you wouldn’t want to share with anyone else or not.
Jon Hartman says on May 16th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
We ran into a Gmail problem, when my wife discovered she could no longer access her account. Turns out, someone with an ID very similar to hers forgot what her user ID was, contacted Google, and social-engineered her way into access of my wife’s account. Instead of realizing the mistake she’d made, she proceeded to:
*Delete all my wife’s old email
*Point all her automatic bill pays at this account
*Set up Google Checkout and purchase some google apps referencing this account
People can glamorize the web-based apps all they like, but I’ll maintain my own data, thanks. In a world of encrypted thumbdrives, VPN’s, and remote-desktop, there risks of outsourcing my data integrity outweigh the benefits.
Sari Grove says on May 17th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I am an artist…years ago, when the first tiny portable computer phone came out(it was an audiovox thera), I put all of my works in the cloud, so that I could quickly show a new painting on the spot to a collector or gallery, wherever I might be…
I also had found that email boxes use up a huge amount of memory on a computer, so I shifted to a cloud based email box…
My iWeb mobileme website started to gum up my Mac computer at home, so I now build in iweb & crush it with webcrusher then send it via Transmit to Freewebs who can handle bigger traffic…
I store videos at Fototime or Box.net for large files, as well as Flickr pro, Fotopic.net, & a few other cloud based servers…
I spend a lot of time reading & looking at art on the internet & fast loading is important, so files don’t stay on my computer for long, since they slow down the learning process…
Living in the cloud is usually based on trust…If you are a trusting person, it works…If you are worried about copying, well…
Lilx says on June 10th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Wireless internet access is growing and will reach ubiquity, sooner then you think.
Do you trust your money to your bank?
Why won’t you trust your information to an internet company?
You know that Google has more market share than Citigroup?
Rick says on June 14th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Thanks for the info!
Nick says on July 8th, 2009 at 7:46 am
“In the cloud”? Can you explain the meaning behind this phrase and, whilst you are at it, would everyone stop talking in this ridiculous office-speak manner and revert to English, please? Next you’ll have articles on straw men, joining the dots and blue sky thinking! Have a word with yourselves…