You would think that the ability to access your information anywhere by the simple expedient of moving it away from one physical location, out onto the internet, would be compelling. And it is for a lot of people – Cloud Computing is the tech bubble of 2008-2010. But we are already starting to see the problems with the model. Hopefully this should go some way to bursting the bubble and let cloud computing assume its proper place – a useful tool, not a universal panacea.

The major problem is that all you’re actually doing is moving your data from one physical location to a different one. A different one where you have less control – you have no say how your data is being maintained. How, or even if, it’s being backed up. What it’s being used for. How you can get it back. How it can be deleted. Your company’s data is the very essence of its existence. Surely you must do everything to preserve it?

A few days ago I wrote about people being locked out of their Google Apps accounts. Commonly used services, for example Google Notebook, cease development. And a couple of days ago, Ma.gnolia, a major social bookmarking service provider, suffered major data loss and has gone offline. The people fighting with Google Apps finally got access to their documents again. Ma.gnolia users may not be so lucky – at over 48 hours’ downtime, it could well be the site is gone for good – along with all its users’ bookmarks.

So how can a balance be struck between the convenience of data being stored in the cloud, universally accessible, and remaining in your control? A few simple rules should cover it.

The responsibility for your data remains with you.
It’s your stuff. Your data. What you need, use, and find useful. Nobody wants to be in the situation that Ma.gnolia users find themselves this weekend – potentially several years of accumulated bookmarks inaccessible and probably never to be retrieved.

Don’t use a service that doesn’t allow for easy import and export of your data.
Leaving aside keeping ongoing control of your data, your IT needs grow and change over time. What happens when your needs get met better by a new service in comparison to your existing one? You need to be able to migrate. If your current service doesn’t allow for exportation of your data in an easily-accessible format, you’re using the wrong service.

Synchronisation is better than import/export
Like it or not, most computing is still done locally. Where Cloud Computing can come into its own is where it integrates seamlessly with the data you have locally, for example calendar sharing or address book synchronisation. Services using data synchronisation, not data moving, are going to be the big winners in the next few years.

Free services are a false economy
When something goes wrong, what can you do? The free services out there have no service level agreement with you whatsoever. If something goes wrong, tough. This is simply not feasible in the long term – something that Ma.gnolia users are finding out this weekend. While the SLAs for paid services are hardly any better, at least they offer the chance of getting support at the end of a phone if something untoward happens.