In the last days, some news were released about the location of Google Data Centers, like for example the Google container data center tour video and the Revealed: where Google’s data centres are around the world article
In my opinion, this kind of news are positive, but can be negative…
They are positive, because consumers can feel more save, after all they ”know” where their data is stored, the exact locations, etc., in a way we can say that it’s like if they can “touch it”.
But, just like consumers can know where their data is stored, so can terrorists. I know that Google have backup Data Centers,etc. etc. but…
I will share some information, I tweet the Google container data center tour video with one of those programs that short and track the links, the results are the following (until now):
Total Clicks : 582
3 Major Locations: I will not disclosure the exact country,but it’s a country with terrorism activities and was in war very recently: 540; United States: 20; Portugal: 11
Whta’s your opinion? “it’s positive or negative to know where Google Data Centers are located?” Thanks.
Google secrecy about Data Centers (on April 11th, 2008, I hope they keep it):
“Google has made it difficult both to find out where they keep their data centers and how many they have. One big reason for this is that almost all IP addresses that Google uses (and there are a lot of them) are listed to their Mountain View, California address, so just looking at IP addresses (with IP WHOIS or IP-to-location databases) won’t help you figure out where their data centers are or how many they have.”
Source: http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/04/11/map-of-all-google-data-center-locations/
I think the following statement is the perfect balance between confidence (Do You Know Where Your Cloud’s Data Center Is?) and risk management:
“What vendors are doing needs to be made public … The exact measures don’t need to be aired, but the degree of security provided needs to be stated, then audited by a trustworthy third party, who concludes whether the vendor is doing what it claims to be doing.”
Source: http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/blog/archives/2009/06/its_6_oclock_do.html
Although nowadays, in the legal perspective, the location of a company’s data is very important, we have to admit that Cloud Computing paradigm is, at least, obliging to rethink this perspective in order to adjust it to the elasticity and ubiquity of the technologies promoted by it.
As you have said, it’s important to know what the vendors are doing with our data, but in the end it will be everything about reputation, trust links and contracts, because that is the bases of our economic system. Vendors have to build good reputation because that will be the only way to create trust links with costumers. Opening their doors (vendors’ datacenters doors) will definitely help, but it won’t be enough, a costumer will have alway to have procedures to avoid vendor’s lock in, etc, etc…