Jeff Bell Blog

Do you ever wonder where your data goes when it is stored in the “cloud?” When it comes to online backup , many companies store all your data in one centralized place. While this approach is simpler for the company, and may make access quicker and easier for the customer, what if the centralized storage fails? If a server crashes, or a storage hard-drive dies, having all your files in one place means losing everything. This completely overrides the point of having a backup system in the first place. As we discussed in our last blog post, what if someone hacks into the data center ? This has happened at Citibank, Sony, Amazon and Visa. Digital Lifeboat uses automated distributed file storage – breaking your files into small fragments, replicating and encrypting them, and sending them out into the cloud to be stored in multiple locations. Think of it as putting your eggs in a few different baskets, or diversifying your stock portfolio. Case in point: if you only schedule a

Capex vs. Opex - The Costs of Storing Your Data One of the great debates in cloud computing involves business economics and the inherent expense that stocking and running a data center entails.  You may even hear the phrase "Capex vs Opex" in this debate.  This phrase refers to the trade-offs of investing in building and operating your own data center (Capital Expenditure and Operating Expenditure) versus using someone else’s data center (Operating Expenditure) on a pay-as-you-go or rental model.  It's important to consider the financial implications of both approaches in the long run - especially since “renting” costs less in the short term, but the investments in data centers will ultimately be passed on to the end users, making that approach more expensive.   Owning and stocking a physical data center requires capital expenditure (Capex), large amounts of space filled with computer hardware, and the cash flow to pay the power bill.  Many "cloud-based" d