Outsourcing more things to the cloud has been far from a perfect transition. What would you say C.L.O.U.D. stands for? On good days? On bad days?
Continuous Learning Of Unwanted Drafts
A cloud service could make you feel like you’re just in a constant beta state. You nor your users probably enjoy having to learn and adapt to interface and functional changes. Sometimes you can get bug fixes and cool new features but other times it can seem like a change is made for the sake of change.
Can’t Look On Ur Data
For some services, you may have limited access to the raw data. This could be a good thing for compliance that your employees cannot see the raw data but it doesn’t say anything about the cloud service providers’ employees. This restricted window to your data might also limit your options when in need of a recovery or migrating away from this provider.
Connection Lost; Offline Unavailable; D‘oh!
Storing everything in the cloud makes you more dependent on your connection to the Internet. To access your existing files or upload more data, you have to be connected. Moving to the cloud might allow you to save money on servers and other hardware, but you might do well to invest that savings in a reliable Internet connection or higher data cap.
Competitors Launched; Offerings Upside Down
Moving to the cloud from custom, built in-house apps probably requires shaping your data to fit a standard format. Once you do that, you might have more options to shop around with. When it comes to the cloud, there are a number of competitors but some of them might leave you scratching your head on how they do things backwards from all the rest. They’re also unlikely to change since they have tons of customers to balance.
Company Leaves; Offers Undoing Dream
A cloud provider is only going to stay in business as long as it is profitable to do so. If they close up shop and you are heavily dependent on their infrastructure and can’t find a replacement, your organization might not be far behind.
Copyright Leaves Owners; Usurper Deprives
We’ve seen before with Google’s Terms of Service = Not Safe For Work? that there are things to consider when placing important information and data in another company’s hands. What if your intellectual property was stolen and you even gave them permission to take it as part of the Terms of Service agreement?
Costs Lift; Offerings Uncoupled Dollars
A cloud provider might start off with low introductory rates to get customers but those costs could rise. It could also be costly or inconvenient to change providers. If the costs no longer match the features, do you continue paying this provider?
Company Left Open, Unarmed; Defaced
Is the cloud secure for your data? Outsourcing to the cloud gives you the benefit of having specialists watch over that function but if they screw up, you could be left exposed. Data has been left open before (Dropbox). If you have important or regulated data, it probably doesn’t belong in the cloud.
I didn’t intend for all of the above acronyms to be negative. If you have some more positive (or negative) suggestions to throw out there, send them to us on our social media channels.
Infographic
This infographic further focuses on the negatives of the cloud.
(Credit: Websitehostreview.com)