So there was a GMail outage. So Sidekick owners got a bit of a kick in the side. So the comentators are once more pouring forth on the subject of the reliability of ‘the cloud’.

At least there does seem to be some balance in this discussion. If, like me, you are a regular listener to the TWiT podcast, you’ll hear every mention argued for both sides of the debate. However, it always seems to start, inevitably I suppose, with the “see, this is why you shouldn’t rely on the cloud” outburst. The problem for this argument is that the protagonists don’t seem to realise a key point about the cloud. It’s nothing new.

John C. Dvorak often cites GMail outages as clear evidence of why cloud computing is a bad idea. So let’s look at that situation. Assuming, for now, that we are talking about private individuals, the majority of users of email are likely using an email address provided by their ISP, or are using a service like Hotmail, GMail, or Yahoo! Mail. Those three services I have listed are considered “in the cloud” for this argument. But actually, it depends on the usage model employed. You can use Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo! Mail in exactly the same ways you can use your ISP mail. Either online with a web browser, or using a local Mail User Agent such as Thunderbird, Apple Mail or (shudder) Outlook.

Yes that’s right folks. There’s very little difference between the old ISP model and the new ‘webmail’ model. The difference is in how you use the service. And that comes down to space. Your ISP probably gives you something from a few megabytes to maybe a few hundred. GMail currently gives you over seven gigabytes. With GMail, there is, for most people, no danger of running out of space. For your ISP email, you are far more likely to run out of space so you must do one of two things. Either delete emails (which works for many) or download them with Outlook etc. If you do the latter, you’re using the ‘old model’ and are avoiding the cloud according to the protagonists.

So if you’re using GMail (I’m just going to refer to GMail from here on in, as it’s a service I know – you can assume Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail operate similarly) how do you ‘get out of the cloud’? Simple. You use Outlook or similar to download your email. Just like your ISP mail. It is, in effect, backing up your mail.

Now let’s move on to Google Documents versus Microsoft Word. Once again, there are alternative products and services at both ends and both paid and free options are available in each case. As we’re talking documents, let’s shift into a workplace-centric discussion.

The problem with cloud-based documents is ‘reliability’. It is not always aimed at the same failure point. Sometimes the service itself fails. Sometimes the network fails. In reality, if anything between you and your documents fails, preventing your access, then you have a failure pure and simple. So if Google’s document servers go belly up, what’s the damage? Probably very little. Google is a big company and you can be sure they take backups seriously. Sure you may not have access to your documents for a while, but backups willing (and even that only in the worst case of data loss), it’ll come back online before long and you’ll be away. This ‘huge risk’ of being unable to access your documents is a reason to avoid the cloud, right?

Maybe. But consider this. If you use Microsoft Word, then you’re relying on Microsoft’s software (and probably their operating system too) to keep your files intact and accessible. Generally it does a pretty good job at that. But what if you lose a file? What if you accidentally delete a file? What if you try to use the file and Word corrupts it? (It can happen.) What if some other piece of software corrupts the file? These are all possibilities. In order to sort out the problem you have what resources to turn to for help? Well, yourself for the most part. Maybe a colleague had a copy. You can always call the ‘help’desk who will ask if you had a backup. Oh wait, yes, a backup. So what would you really do if one of these happened? Of course the simple answer is you would reach for your backup. Or would you?

Do you have a backup? In my place of work, which is a very large, multinational IT company, backups of data stored on your laptop are entirely the responsibility of the user. Backup tools are provided and they do a pretty good job, but I can tell you that everyone I know who uses it found out about the service from another individual. The company does not make it mandatory and I would wager a large proportion of users are unprotected! So this backup service the company provides – how does it work? Simple, it backs up over the network to a backup server. Yes, that’s right. Into the cloud!

But the company does not promote the idea of keeping documents locally on your computer because it is, well, the ‘old’ way of doing things. These days we share everything (office space, limited salary pools, etc.) and it’s not terribly convenient if someone else who wants to view your masterpiece has to ask you to email them a copy. So what do we do? We put the files on a file server or (God forbid we get any work done) on a Sharepoint site. Both of these are using the cloud model.

What about the private individual’s documents? The main differences are they are far more likely not to be backed up (and almost certainly not offsite) and there will be no-one else to help recover a lost/deleted document and there was probably only ever one copy in the first place. So what was the danger of the cloud again?

I could go on with further examples but I think I’ve made my point. I’ll summarise here. Cloud Computing is the new name for a collection of old paradigms. Ever since networks became popular, and increasingly with the advent of the internet and broadband access speeds, the storage of data in ‘the cloud’ has been a viable choice. There are upsides and downsides to doing it either way and the smart user will protect themselves from the downsides. Most users who get ‘burned’, either by the cloud or their local system, have insufficient insurance in place.

So when you hear a commentator saying “cloud computing will never take off” or “cloud computing is unreliable” then they’re basically generalising. Horribly so.