Amazon Glacier Revolutionizes Cloud Storage


Your business can create tons and tons of data over its lifetime. At some point, you will need to think about storage, but the question whether to store your data  locally or in the cloud has become a major topic of debate. That storage can become expensive depending on the amount of information and the type of storage used. Along the way, however, storage options have been transformed with other cloud computing tools. But, Read on! Our posts below can help you decide whether the benefits of the cloud outweigh its risks.

The Coming Ice Age

The tip of the iceberg. Amazon is revolutionizing cloud storage again, with a new service called Glacier, offering an incredible one GB of storage per month for only one penny. Glacier is intended to be extremely affordable archive storage for data of all kinds, and uploading is free. Amazon Web Services Blog

Cold storage. Amazon hopes the new Glacier service will completely transform the way businesses large and small view data storage. Much of this data is today still kept on company hard drives or even tape. Soon, Amazon hopes it will convince companies to store all this data in the cloud. ZDNet

Slow thaw. However, there is at least one downside to the new Amazon storage. Since the service was designed as an archiving solution and not for active use, it may be much more costly to retrieve your data than it is to store it. The question is, whether businesses will consider this a good trade off. Wired

Expert cool on the cloud. At least one of the founding fathers of personal computing is worried about cloud storage. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak worries plenty about a day when all data may be in the cloud and taken out of the hands of those who created it. Google News

Business in the Cloud

Saving grace. The greatest benefit of moving data and applications into the cloud is in a business’s bottom line. According to a 2011 poll, 84 percent of businesses reported a noticeable savings with cloud computing. On average, that savings was about 21 percent annually. Smallbiz Technology

Data detour. On the downside, when you share data in the cloud there are several points at which information could easily fall into the wrong hands, as this post and graphic clearly illustrate. No matter what you think of the cloud, the security of your data and your customer information should be a primary concern. Small Business Trends

Where has all the data gone? If you’re uploading content or data from a point of sale or other application to the cloud, it might be a good idea to understand the risks involved. You will want to take precautions in case the data is lost. Here are some considerations. Michael Hartzell


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