Where do you keep your valuables?
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 07:58PM From "Google Now Covers All Apps With Advanced Backup," PC World, March 4, 2010.
Google recently extended what it describes as highly advanced and sophisticated data backup and recovery to all components of its Apps communication and collaboration suite.
The level of protection, both in terms of the amount of data preserved and of service restoration time, is typically only affordable to very large companies and cloud computing vendors, according to Google.
At the core is real-time, synchronous replication in multiple servers and data centers of every morsel of data entered into or modified in any of the Apps components, like Gmail, the Docs office suite, Sites and Calendar."Anytime you change any data in Apps, whether writing a sentence in a document or changing a cell in a spreadsheet, in the background we go and write that data to multiple servers within one data center and also in other data centers," said Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager.
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Some large companies have invested in synchronous replication of the sort Google is able to do, but at a cost that is prohibitive to most enterprises and smaller businesses. Google is able to provide this disaster recovery protection for free because it operates many data centers around the world that are connected via high-speed links, Sheth said.
What level of automated backup can we reasonably be expected to provide in K-12 schools? None that seems practical. And unless you know some secret formula that I do not, getting most staff to make manual back-ups is impossible. ("No, two copies of a file on the same device does not constitute a back up.")
I've written before about where one ought to keep things of value. For physical objects, one can keep them at home in a sock drawer, in a safe in the closet or in a bank vault downtown. I think most of us would agree that keeping all your diamonds and pearls in a safe deposit box with large, mean-looking armed individuals just outside the door it feels much safer.
So where does one keep one's digital valuables - at home on your computer hard drive, on a server on the district WAN, or in the cloud where large, mean-looking geeks who know a lot about computer security stand virtual guard?
Yet, I hear district level IT people express concern about the "security" of information kept in the cloud. Could this be a territorial issue more than a technical one?
BTW, my colleague Jen Hegna at Byron has a terrific presentation on Slideshare about the whys and hows of why her district went with GoogleApps. Take a look here.
Reader Comments (5)
I use a combination of things. I use Delicious to bookmark things, which actually does a good job of storing articles and sites I would never find again. I use Google Docs & Gmail for nearly everything else, although at school I use the District server (firewall won't let me upload to Docs or Gmail). I scanned old family pictures and put them on Picasa, but I also have them on flashdrives & a passbook. What I don't like about flashdrives is they can easily be chipped or unreadable, so the cloud is the best option for me. I don't really worry about Google peaking into my stuff- they must have boring jobs if so. I don't know why so many worry about the cloud: we all use an ISP and our emails have been on another server for years, but no one complained about AOL in the mid 90's. I have a netbook now so there's no practicality to downloading much onto it but use it as a portal.
I've been interested in companies that are now in the business of protecting your online identity when you pass on: Facebook passwords, email, etc. What happens to you in the cloud, so to speak? Some even have an automated "last message" that goes out if you don't login to the service for a length of time. Hmmm. Just imagine when you lose that password...
At home when I am dealing with pictures and music, I use at least 3 flash disk for back up files I save all my files there. But in the office we use Google Docs too.
Hi Doug,
IMHO, I find it comforting that Google is backing up my data (email, calendar, docs,ect). There is also a great convenience in having my data in the cloud. No matter what or where the endpoint is - office, home, phone, library, grandma's) I have access to my info. It also doesn't hurt having some of the brightest engineers (Google) strategizing new ways to keep my information safe!
Jen
PS -Thanks for the plug!
This is an issue I feel behind in with photo and music files. I've had a digital camera for 3 years now, which was a little late on that train, and until this fall, my photos were kept on 1) computer hard drive, 2) on an online service (first Kodak, now Shutterfly), and 3) by printing them out. I think I want to keep a 4th backup, because Shutterfly is great for viewing and printing photos, but not so good at getting the original files back, but I haven't gotten around to it yet (yes, eek, I know).
I JUST got my first MP3 player for Christmas, so I now need to think about music files, too....
Documents, I back-up on flash drives and my computer hard-drive, but often e-mail myself copies and let Gmail keep a copy. I have a vague sense that the cloud is not completely trustworthy, but it's so convenient...and I am happy that I see more articles cropping up indicating that the cloud is a viable option!
Hi Libby,
So little in life is 100% secure. About all we can do is be aware and make the best possibile effort to keep anything safe, I guess.
Doug