I've always been skeptical about Cloud computing ...
I've never quite understood the allure of cloud computing for individuals or businesses. Although I backup my files, including emails, every few days. Most consumers don't do that. I can understand why folks would want to use Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
Oh have I mentioned my mechanic friend who may have lost three years worth of emails and other files in his Hotmail account. It would appear that a malicious ex girl friend sent a bunch of ugly porn spam from his account and Hotmail shut his account down for TOS violations. Things are still pending on that one last I heard.
But cloud computing for businesses? If you're big enough to need a SQL Server then what's the problem with having your own semi-competent IT staff which run it? If there's a problem the CEO can look the IT person in the eye and ask what is going on.
Turns out McKinsey & Co, who are some kind of consulting outfit that are supposedly trusted by CEO types, agrees with me. McKinsey: adopt the cloud, lose money - Virtualize your datacenter instead. The summary done by the Reg of the Mkinsey report sounds about right to me.
My friend Jim, who run the IT department at his employer, loves the whole concept of Virtualization and such. As far as I know he is running all his servers as virtual systems under a high powered server against a SAN (or some such) with raided, hot swappable hard drives and daily tape backups. And if he likes them then that's good enough for me.