How safe is your data in On2Biz?
February 24, 2007 – 1:36 pmWith the recent declaration by Google to offer a paid version of its web applications such as Gmail, calendar, and online document editors - collectively called Google Apps, the Software As A Service (SaaS) model has become mainstream. Now the discussion of the core issues relating to SaaS are being actively discussed, and hopefully will result in a widespread understanding of the benefits and compromises involved. As a case in point, Phil Wainewright, who maintains a well read blog aptly titled “Applications on demand” recently wrote - “Your data: safe in your hands?” that talks about one of the core issues - Data Security.
Unlike other attributes such as amount of space, bandwidth, or software features - which are easily measurable and therefore comparable, data security is psychological. Users have a false sense of security regarding data that is stored locally on their own computer or internal server as compared to data stored in a web server at a data center. Phil gives some examples to prove otherwise:
- U.K. company fined over laptop theft
- Hard drive vanishes from VA facility
- Stolen Boeing laptop held ID data on 382,000
- Commerce Department counts 1,100 missing laptops
- Theft of laptop puts thousands of identities at risk
These stories show how easy it is to steal data from “well-resourced enterprises and government departments” when the data is stored in individual computers. Compared to that, data that is centrally stored in a professionally managed data center is far safer. The amount of investments that can be made at a data center towards securing data, and the risks involved for the service provider in the event of data loss are far too high. Ofcourse, trusting a big company like Google with your data is different from trusting an upstart like On2Biz. But then, with On2Biz, you have direct access to the people involved, rather than a call center handling customer calls. So you can hold us responsible - and we know it.
But as for outsourced storage, the story is going to get even more interesting. Google, and other big web companies like Amazon are working towards allowing web services companies like us to use their servers on a pay-per-use basis. We have already subscribed to Amazon’s S3 - which allows us to store data on servers managed by Amazon, and EC2 - which allows us to run our applications from their servers too! This will then give the double benefit of world-class security infrastructure combined with personal attention from the On2Biz team. But till then, our servers are still hosted in a world class professionally managed data center.
Looking forward to more action from the big guys…