[LINK] Qld govt moving to the cloud

Jan Whitaker jwhit at janwhitaker.com
Fri May 31 13:10:24 AEST 2013


At 12:56 PM 31/05/2013, Nick Ross wrote:
>Isn't it the case that all current services are on the internet 
>already. While the cloud makes them more easily accessible, it's 
>likely to have better security than a zillion government servers 
>which are poorly maintained, no?

In my limited knowledge, just thinking logically, there would be 
yes/no answers to that. If you collect 'all' your data in one place, 
it is more at risk if the security is breached. Distributed data 
doesn't have that risk unless all the security employed across the 
range of servers are equally low. If you rob Fort Knox where all the 
gold is, you're going to win bigger than trying to hit a bunch of 
different banks. But Fort Knox is strongly secured in the scheme of 
things. As we have seen, though, nothing is impenetrable, even when 
the stores are managed by those with the highest attention to 
security. Which risk is less?

At a minimum, I'd be looking at back-up strategies that didn't rely 
solely on the one cloud storage provider or would be looking into 
their diversification of back-up services. It doesn't solve the 
breach of data into the wild, but it at least means you can't be 
totally locked out or at the mercy of a single source for 
access/recovery, like the poor schmucks how were held to data ransom 
of thousands of dollars in their local office practices.


>As for raw costs, the efficiencies of cloud must be vast compared to 
>maintaining and supporting and updating local infrastructure.

This takes a bigger brain than mine. Someone is going to have to pay 
for the power consumption (did you see the story about the power 
consumption of Bitcoin as well as the compute power? Incredible.). 
Someone is going to pay for the hardware capital costs and the system 
support. Yeah, there is probably a sharing cost, but there is also a 
profit margin that will need to be covered. Hence my question about 
shortterm charging models versus long term return and cost recovery 
costs in subsequent contracts. Just look at what has happened with 
the electricity industry costs in Victoria after privatisation or the 
run-down copper network for comms. Pay me now or pay me later.

There is no such thing as a free cloud. I just don't know the real 
economics of it. The business case, the business case! Has anyone 
looked at it with an eye to these questions more than the forward 
estimates costs?


>Am doing a lot of radio on this today, so any thoughts are welcome!

Hope that helps.

Jan
(just a curious bystander with no skin in the game in Queensland, but 
felt a large jump in electricity in Victoria this quarter)



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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