Cloud computing? Maybe not . . .

The "next big thing" in Internet applications is called "cloud computing" (there's even a Cloud Computing Journal). The idea is rather simple: you (the user) carry around a computer that has a web browser on it. Using the web browser, you access the software you want, including things like word processors (now available through Google Apps, for example) and sales software (the "big example" of cloud computing). You no longer need to install, upgrade and diagnose faulty applications. You pay for the service (it's sometimes referred to as "software as a service" or SaaS), and not the software.  IBM's newest effort is described like this:

The new IBM Smart Business Desktop on the IBM Cloud is a subscription service for virtualizing desktop computing resources, providing a logical, rather than physical, method of accessing data, computing power, storage capacity and other resources.

Some people think this is the "wave of the immediate future" and that all things will be "cloud" based. Others wonder about security and still others worry about privacy. Me, I worry about this scenario (after the jump):

I'm writing the final examination for my Cyber Law class. It's due to the secretary in one hour, and I'm finishing off the final edits, checking for inconsistencies by printing and reading it, and I've sent a copy off to a colleague to proof-read for me. I get a call from the colleague: what looks like a huge cut/paste error on page 2; makes no sense as is, but is a quick fix through re-cut and re-paste. I open my browser to start the cloud computing app I use, and am confronted with this:

This is what users of Google's "Gmail" E-mail service -- itself an example of cloud computing -- were confronted with for most of the day (according to the Washington Post, it is now back up). If I got that message for my main cloud computing app at a time when I needed it, or even when I wanted it (such as when I'm ready to make edits to an article or to sketch out ideas for what I might work on next), I would probably have a break-down (or at least throw a huge fit). If it happened for an entire day, for example, when something like an exam was due, my colleagues waiting for my contribution would have break-downs because of me. And I wouldn't be able to simply run down to a student computer lab, or get a loaner computer from my IT department, because it wouldn't be my computer that would be the problem, it would be the cloud.

The issues would only multiply in the law practice setting, where an entire firm could be sitting around twiddling its thumbs not because of the economic downturn, but because its "cloud" was broken. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

The Washington Post reported that Twitter was abuzz with the outage:

"It's like worse than a power outage," wrote one user of both services.

Like, um, yeah, you think? Until there's a lot more reliability in Internet services in general, and in Internet apps -- of the SaaS variety -- specifically, I won't be making that the leap into the cloud, but will be keeping my feet planted safely on the ground.

Comments

[GJELblogger]

I had a meeting with one of the founders of box.net (so, clearly he's pretty computer savvy), and I expressed concerns about the cloud computing framework. "What if I don't have internet access?" I asked. He said that cloud computing is anticipating a world in which there is global internet access--free wireless, around the world. "What if the server crashes?" I asked next. "It won't. Trust me. Google's servers won't crash" was the response.

Hmmm. I'm with you. Staying out of the cloud for now (for the most part. I do love gmail.)

[twitter.com/TheHRLawyer]

While I don't think cloud-computing is a panacea to every computing problems facing lawyers and law firms, I do think that the "down-time" argument is actually a winning argument for the cloud.

Obviously downtown is a bad thing for a law firm. And, speaking at someone who worked for a very large national firm for a number of years, you don't need a cloud to have downtime. Any complicated server setting, whether it be the firm's in-house servers or an "in the cloud" solution, is going to have downtime.

What is important to consider, however, is that in-house servers generally have far more downtime than Google or other cloud providers.

At present, cloud computing is being embraced primarily by smaller firms and practitioners that don't have access to their own in-house team of 24/7 tech support departments. In these situations, cloud computing (which generally includes tech support as a part of the arrangement) is a far superior choice to being responsible for maintaining your own server and having your whole firm sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a tech support vendor to arrive.

Yes, down time sucks. But realistically, good cloud computing providers have a better record of uptime than most if not all private server systems. Add to this the data security and ubiquity advantages of cloud-based systems and it becomes easy to see why so many people believe the future of computing is "in the cloud."