Public "Personal" Clouds

Q1: Do some research on Amazon’s Cloud Drive. What is the amount of free storage space? What is the annual cost for additional storage? What about Apple’s iCloud? Is it still free? Does Microsoft charge anything for use of its SkyDrive cloud service?

The Amazon’s Cloud Drive give first 5 GB storage free and charge additional USD 0.50 per year for every extra GB.

It is show that iCloud is not free. It only provides 5GB free and after that user can upgrade to certain storage capacity with a one lump sum payment.

Skydrive offer 7GB free and additional charges are depending to the capacity by annually basis. For example, 20GB for USD 10 per year, 50GB for USD 25 per year and 100 GB for USD 50 per year.

Q2: Putting all your personal information in the cloud means letting go of some control over information like your tax files, personal photos that you might not want anyone else to see, term papers you’re currently writing, and so on. What is your level of concern for the security of these personal digital assets in the cloud? Explain why your level of concern is high or low.

My level of concern is high as there is a lot of information that I do not hope to publish in public. Since the service providers offer such product with fees, it is their duty to make sure my data being protected. Besides, my data shall be protected under data protection act so that I could store my data in cloud safely.

Q3: As we move more of our personal storage needs to the cloud, will computers really need disk storage space? Is it possible that we’re in the early stages of an outrageous industry transformation? Who are the major manufacturers of disk storage for personal computers and laptop?

In future, computer might not need to have personal storage. However, since there are a lot of people need to store some data privately, the personal storage will not disappear from the world. However, offering storage in cloud is the early stages of an outrageous industry transformation where people have the choice of storing data online and the data will much easy to be recover if the data had been accidently deleted.

Currently, the major disk storage for personal computers and laptop provider is kingstam.

Q4: If you choose to store all your personal information in the cloud, you’ll need a personal continuity plan, much like organizations have business continuity plans in case of some sort of disaster. Suppose that right now you begin storing all your personal information, what will you also back up onto a flash drive? How often would you perform the backup information on your computer’s hard drive?

As a lay person, the data that I might back up might be related to money and tax. I might not backup data other than money related as, most of the data is not that important that I cannot survive if I lose it. I might back up those needed data only once a month as I believe that it is not so easy that the service provider will lost my data as there also need to protect their good will.

Q5: Do some research on personal cloud providers. What sort of service level agreement (SLA) do they offer? Are you willing to store your information with a personal cloud provider that offer no SLA? Why or why not.

Example of personal cloud providers SLA:

• Codifies the specific parameters and minimum levels required for each element of the service, as well as remedies for failure to meet those requirements.
• Affirms your institution’s ownership of its data stored on the service provider’s system, and specifies your rights to get it back.
• Details the system infrastructure and security standards to be maintained by the service provider, along with your rights to audit their compliance.
• Specifies your rights and cost to continue and discontinue using the service.

Basically the personal cloud providers will agree to store your data safely. If a personal cloud providers did not have SLA, which is mean that the data you store in that personal cloud providers will not have strong protection. It is much like keeping money in unlicensed banking system where you would probably lost your data or your data might be stole by a third person. So my opinion is, better pay more for security purpose rather than store data in personal cloud providers without SLA.