The loss of Sidekick subscriber data tempers much of the enthusiasm surrounding cloud-based telephony. The popular media loves this sort of thing and there is no shortage of technology guru’s who can blur the line(s) between private clouds, public clouds, storage area networks, remote back-up and just about any future plans Microsoft may have for what we’d call “recombinant telephony.” Through traditional media, microblogs and blog posts, I feel as well-informed as anyone regarding the plausible causes of an unforgivable loss of client-side data.

The narrative, per Chris Ziegler at Engadget, goes something like this: Microsoft outsourced not its service cloud but its “storage area network” (SAN) to Hitachi which, in the process of a failed data transfer, had neglected to keep a back-up copy of subscriber data. Therefore, when Sidekick owners (all T-Mobile subscribers) took measures to restore their data, they found their accounts empty – which basically wiped out their client-side data.

This darkening of the cloud casts a shadow across all X-as-a-Service (XaaS) initiatives. But that should not last long. While such a massive loss of data has to be devastating for those involved, for the rest of us, it is a timely reminder of the trade-offs involved and the precautions that must be taken when moving to various flavors of virtualization – call it SaaS, “on-demand”, “hosted”, “managed” or “in The Cloud.” It is incumbent on service providers to offer high levels of uptime, strong security and service assurance. But, like any regular user of Twitter knows, we all must confront the reality that network connections can be interrupted, updates can fail and data can be lost.

When you think about the level of activity on the global Internet and the World Wide Web, what stands out is its fragility. There’s a kludginess to almost every element from the basic IP v4-based switching protocol (moving to IP v6), Web’s Domain Name System (DNS) administration and all of the fundamental issues surrounding network security and prevention of malicious activity. Yet a growing number of people have made the Web their preferred, personal platform for commerce, communications and collaboration. We carry out banking, microblogging and file sharing, often without knowing whether we’re depending on the data or intelligence in the device we’re using or resources in the network cloud.

The Danger Data Loss Episode is a cautionary tale for service providers and end-users alike. It is more important than ever before for people to make sure that their most important data – like your contacts, photos, important documents and projects – are stored in multiple locations. While the finger pointing among Microsoft, T-Mobile and Hitachi takes over the headlines, we must look at ourselves, gauge our dependence on the Internet and determine to make sure we have a back-up plan that survives the growth of the real-time Web, cloud-based computing and recombinant telephony.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Microsoft, Recombinant Telephony, mobile applications