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Harris Exits Cloud Hosting, Citing Fed Server Hugging
miller60 writes "Despite the publicity around the U.S. Government's 'Cloud First' approach to IT, many agencies are reluctant to shift mission critical assets to third-party facilities. That's the analysis from Harris Corp., which has decided to get out of the cloud hosting business and sell a data center in Virginia, just two years after it spent $200 million to build and equip it. 'It's becoming clear that customers, both government and commercial, currently have a preference for on-premise versus off-premise solutions,' said Harris' CEO."
Have you hugged your server today?
No one wanted cloud storage, but some businesses.
The only thing worse then saying something bad happened and all our data is gone, is saying, the cloud disappeared and all our data is gone.
Be seeing you...
Because I really was looking forward to putting all my mission critical inhouse infrastructure into someone elses control.
Yet another duh moment in technology.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Cloud" is today's "Snake oil"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Everyone wants to keep their data close to their chest, but only the Feds and Fortune 500 companies have the resources to actually do it. For a startup or small business, cloud services are a god send. Compared to the costs of building a data center and staffing an IT department, a good cloud provider gets you up instantly and expands seamlessly. Harris targeted the wrong audience and/or they could not compete with Amazon.
Statesman
This seemingly popular push to "cloud computing" had everyone bouncing... seemed that way didn't it? But I'm guessing they were simply pushing a lot of hype and when it came down for business people to sign, they asked "you want me to put my data where? It's not on my servers or under my control? And you want me to sign something that says you're not responsible if something happens?!"
So this company, likely founded by someone with a buddy in governement, built a new DC that was supposed to get filled by governement servers, and now because the wind shifted they're caught with their pants down?
Zero sympathy. You tried to cash in on a buzzword, and worse, you hooked your wagon up to the governement. Try a real business model next time.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This is not surprising at all. A lot of government agencies do a lot of business with companies all around this region. It says to me that even in the government agencies there are IT people with bosses that get really excited over the idea of the newest hottest tech like "Cloud Services".
They talk to a lot of companies and get them all worked up that their agency will be moving to this new tech very soon.
Companies spend on the new tech with every indication that 4 or 5 people inside of big agencies will be moving that way very soon.
That is about the time the tech people in the agency present their powerpoint presentations on the promise of cloud technology to their upper bosses.
The upper bosses look at giving their data to someone else and they look at wikileaks and they think about the benefits and downsides and keep their data and servers close to their chest.
To all the asshats who wanted government to be run like a business ? They do run things now a lot like a large clueless fumbling business. You were thinking GE and look they work like a business kind of like a Worldcomm or an Enron.
ACK
just because they offer it, doesn't mean it's completely profitable. And it's possible it's being subsidized by their normal cloud offerings.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Application Service Providers? those guys running Windows NT 4 Terminal Services edition where you had virtual desktops to run MS Office over the slow ass internet of the time? those same guys that failed and their EMC SAN's were on Ebay for 1/5 the new cost?
Same with cloud services
they are only worth it if you're a small start up or mom and pop. if you're a fortune 1000 or someone else with a data center built then why wipe out the investment you already made?
if you're a big company price out how much amazon costs. by the time you pay for the super servers, all the data and backups it's a lot more than buying yourself.
I've also been curious who this Anonymous Coward person is, and how he manages to hide is certainly very very low userid number.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They just wanted to get in on a new business model that turns out to be a dud. Looks like someone with enough cash can buy a ready-built data center for (relatively) cheap. What it would be useful for is unknown. Google and Facebook build their own, their own way (likely a whole lot better).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Bull shit has been called on the highest order, since he counters his own statement, calling himself a liar before the sentence is even finished. And then there is this:
And the final nail in the "This press release is to cover our asses and hopefully prevent me from losing my job like I should" horseshit parade:
Cloud solutions on their own premises. Riiiiight. Kind of like an "anti-cloud cloud," is that it? Yeah, that's the ticket. The next buzzword: The Anti-Cloud Cloud. This Brown guy sounds like all 'big thinkers' who don't have time for details: the old boys club who just happen to network really well. Heaven forbid they actually have to understand the core concepts around their business and what their potential customers actually need in order to make decisions. Instead he seems to be focusing on what he can sell them. Fire this buzzword-happy dipshit's ass and let him go back to the used car lot. Sigh... and even if they do, he'll still get a settlement package orders of magnitude more than what most people will earn in their lifetimes. Too bad there isn't a way to do more to offset that kind of crap too.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Physical security.
That's why software piracy is so easy... the pirate has the software... and while the agency or company might "trust" some third party there's nothing like having it on site.
I know exactly how this went down... the idea was pitched to the agencies and companies... company IT said "kiss security good bye"... and all the companies and agencies got cold feet.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Just as an FYI, Brown is new to Harris. The former CEO left shortly after the data center was functional. He actually went out on top of bringing Harris up to a $6B+ company.
Not defending anyone here, just giving some information. Brown could not possibly be responsible for this blunder.
With that said, I thought the idea was a little crazy to begin with when Harris wouldn't even put less critical data into a 3rd party providers hands, even with sensitivity guarantees. So, why would their government services division think the government would do it with more critical data?
Every five years or so people hem and hawe about remote service hosting and storage. In the late 90s everyone in the MS Exchange industry was considering remote hosting their groupware. Went no where. Then the new thing was co-hosting telecom. Went no where. In fact, remote-hosting is a good solution when an organization is small, but as soon as it starts to grow it becomes unmanageable. There ARE some examples where remote-hosting in large organizations that make sense, like Arizona State University's move from local IMAP servers to hosting on Gmail, or ASU's remote-hosting of Telecom with Century Link instead of running local CallManager servers - but the cost of these moves are easily dwarfed by the benefits as ASU can recognize the significant cost savings and the SLAs in education can be different than in other industries.
Apologies to Brown then.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
There is no mention of that term anywhere in the article. How about posting headlines in plain English?
This!
So is this stupid cloud fad about over now? About time... Been sick of hearing about it since the beginning.
Now that I think of it.... fuck Brown.... he is the one lying about shit and playing spin doctor. I have to learn not to be so nice. :p
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
What are you going to do with that processing power? Run it off a Cable Modem / DSL Line? Might be adequate to a small number of people, but generally?
Generally you have an office and a LAN. A small company, by definition, doesn't have worldwide presence, and if they do, they still don't usually need huge amounts of bandwidth to serve thousands of users.
And if you mean a startup that sells a web service or something, they can do what we've been doing for almost 20 years: buy hosting or housing space. It doesn't need to be all "cloud". Small companies DO NOT need a world-class datacenter.
Like in Heroku, or on RackSpace or Amazon EC2?
So is this stupid cloud fad about over now?
Nah; it'll probably hang on for a while yet. And in the long run, it'll probably be around for a long time, though on a much smaller scale than its pushers were hoping for. This is because there are some very good uses for it. If you have stuff that you want to be easily available to lots of people wherever they are (with Net access), and you don't particularly mind if non-subscribers get access to some of your stuff, then the Cloud can be really useful.
I have a number of things online that I don't mind people using. My resume, for instance. And a lot of "demo" software that's public to show people what I can do. I've also got improvements to some of my stuff from other people who downloaded something, found that it didn't do something they wanted, added the code, and sent me the patches. There's a lot of stuff like this that's useful but not really profitable, so you might as well share it. And if you don't have to connect to a server 37 hops away to get at it when you're off somewhere remote, so much the better. Storing it redundantly on scattered servers might be very handy for you and your friends.
But I wouldn't expect a lot of business use of the Cloud. Businesses always consider their data Top Secret (even if nobody else gives a damn about it). All it takes is a manager realizing that everything in the Cloud has to be treated as "public", and they'll run away screaming. Similar in government agencies, which are mostly indistinguishable from businesses when it comes to information about their internal workings.
There's also the problem of Cloud providers claiming ownership of useful things they find on their servers, but that's a different topic that we've already discussed a few times here on slashdot. Suffice it to say that if you want to retain ownership of useful software (or your music or medical records or photos of your children), you don't want it stored on someone else's computers. Marketers see such stuff as tools to be used in their own business.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This guy is trying to protect his company and himself from investors who should rightly be judging them as less than competent ...
... customers don't place additional value on trust ...
When I read this before, I thought he was talking about security when he said "trust." Now I see he was attempting to rely on Harris' reputation.
Holy !@#$!
If I worked somewhere that Harris had done work for in the past, I'd be sending letters around to all dept's asking for critical evaluations of Harris' work. What was it, does it work, what's it cost to maintain it, is it reliable/cost effective, would you recommend them for future projects (why or why not), ...
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
No worries, Cloud 2.0 will be out soon...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
For those old enough to remember it, this is just a more sophisticated time sharing system. Which undoubtedly has some advantages for some customers/users. But unlike days past, there is little sense of security concerning not just the survival of the companies involved, but survival of your data and business plans. What is your fall back if you move everything to the cloud? Apologies to the ladies, but yes thats you standing their with your dick in your hand trying to figure out how to recreate your own IT solution. And given the current environment where security either takes a back burner or is just difficult to guaranty, who are you going to go down with? The Cloud provider or your own shop that you have control over?
The issue I have with "Cloud" computing, besides it becoming the latest buzz word and craze, is the security concerns. To my knowledge none of the cloud services comply with any of the security regulations. With that said how many small organizations are using google for email or documents that contain medical information or other regulated items that have strict policies on how personal information is handled?
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
"and watch the sheep flock fill your company's bank account! "
And there you made a point *in favour* of "Tha Cloud": where's your bank account? It is your damn money, for christ's sake! Don't tell me you passed the control of your dear money to a third party, don't tell you don't take of your dear money on premises.
If an external company can be your money's custodian, certainly an external company can be the custodian of your company's data.
And good riddance when it does. It's a massive distraction as people who should know better go chasing after the latest silver bullet.
Some companies know how to do Cloud. Old school GSIs don't.