NHS trusts between a rock and a hard place as cloud provider slowly dies

[pctech]

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/02/08/2e2_cloud_nightmare/

Another argument against the cloud methinks.

[Technical Ben]

What? You mean having your server (or other services) off site, when they are tied in to that server/service and non-migrateable, is a risk if the company then goes under? Who'd have thunk it.

At least with a leased server or such like, you can lock the doors if a bailiff/administrator comes around saying the service provider went bankrupt. If it's off site, the plug is pulled! 

[pctech]

Indeed, understand having your website hosted by a specialist but even if the servers doing the processing are in one of these facilities the storage appliances should be on the organisation's premises.

[Glenn]

O2 have taken on 107 of the e2e staff http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-21371861

[pctech]

Yes I read that, thats very fortunate for those people.

[Technical Ben]

That's a good point. Not just online data, but most people don't think what would happen if their website went down. Thankfully some do keep backups.

[gizmo71]

Cloud computing - technologies allowing dynamic horizontal scaling, high availability, and reliability, and perhaps even response time improvements through geographical distribution.

"The cloud" - giving your precious data and processes to an organization who don't care about it and hoping they don't lose or give the data to somebody inappropriate, or fail to actually run the processes. This problem has existed for as long as IT has been outsourced and the outsourcing providers have simply been trying to sell more of it by hoping buyers will confuse the positives of cloud computing with abdicating responsibility for their business-critical IT for a bit of short-term penny pinching.

Just shows how little the average "IT Director" knows about IT.

[pctech]

Just shows how little the average  "Director" knows about IT.

There, fixed that for you.

[gizmo71]

Just shows how little the average "Director" knows about owt.

Fixed it harder.

[pctech]

Indeed.

[Technical Ben]

Saw a good reply in the comments in the Register. It said that the directors/accountants never realize the problem of outsourcing. Because the costs diminish, and the returns increase. But all of a sudden, the in house IT/resources service stops performing and takes twice as long to get anything done. So they outsource that last office, and then realize the drop in productivity was they were the ones fixing all the previous outsourcing mess ups. 

[pctech]

Saw a good reply in the comments in the Register. It said that the directors/accountants never realize the problem of outsourcing. Because the costs diminish, and the returns increase. But all of a sudden, the in house IT/resources service stops performing and takes twice as long to get anything done. So they outsource that last office, and then realize the drop in productivity was they were the ones fixing all the previous outsourcing mess ups. 

Absolutely true as the most indepth documentation in the world cannot replace embedded systems knowledge and experience.

Also in house employees have a stake in the company (continuing to receive their monthly salary) and so are likely to care about their work whereas to someone working for an outsourcer its simply a contract and losing it does not matter that much to them as an individual so if they can get away with shoddy service and minimal effort they will.

The value of both of the above cannot be represented on a balance sheet or profit and loss account so is ignored by the beancounters until the s**t hits the fan and they realise that John or Jane or team X or Y that knew about this or that were jettisoned in pursuit of 'savings' that turned out to be false economy because the outsourcers don't have experience of a system running in a certain deployment scenario or with certain customisations.