Build Your Own Cloud

Your BestMacs team and I were recently discussing how to work collaboratively on a series of documents. Both Word 2008 and Pages 09 have track changes capabilities, but the harder part was where to store the documents so we could all get to them remotely.

This is typically where the “cloud” would come in. You’ve probably heard the term, but in a nutshell “cloud computing” is just a server that exists on the Internet so that your data is accessible from anywhere. Cloud computing is becoming a hot trend in IT (just ask our friend DoctorDave and BusinessWeek) not necessarily because of its feature set, but because the software and servers are completely managed by the provider, and more importantly the prices are usually inexpensive, often free.

However, the risks of the cloud in most cases far outweigh the benefit of cost savings. A good, well maintained server is not that expensive, and offers you far more control and security.

Here’s some examples of cloud computing that you may have heard of:

• Apple MobileMe
• Apple iWork.com
• Google Apps
• DropBox.com
• Amazon Web Services

By my definition, online backup like Mozy, Carbonite, or BackJack are also in the “cloud.” One can also argue that social media like FaceBook and Twitter are cloud computing but then the line gets a little blurry.  Fact of the matter is that “cloud” is a subjective term at this point – but keeping the eye on the ball: think network service accessible over the Internet.

Google’s cloud is becoming especially popular – it usually starts with the Gmail email servers. We have a significant number of our clients on Gmail because it’s free for non-profits, and very inexpensive for commercial companies. For individuals, you can get away with a free ad-supported version and it works just as well. Email is a prime example of a service where cloud computing makes sense.  Dealing with spam, ensuring delivery of messages, and that the email server is “always on” is a tricky deal. A few of our larger clients run their email servers in-house and it’s not trivial.

So, if Gmail is free and a great service and running your own mail server is expensive and tricky, why would any BestMacs client want to run an email server in their own office? Answer: security and control.

These are the same criteria that we were discussing for the documents we are working on. I briefly toyed with using Google Docs, but then the files live exclusively on Google’s servers. I looked at just storing the documents on our MobileMe iDisk, but there’s no security there. I also thought of Apple’s new iWork.com service, and while it’s secure transmission over the Internet, it’s still sitting on Apple’s servers so I have no control over it.  The problem with each of these solutions is that

1. the files exist on a server maintained by a larger-than-large company in God-only-knows-where
2. security is either questionable or non-existant.

Item 1 is not up for debate. That’s the very nature of “cloud computing” and for some, myself included, it’s an immediate turn-off. When a file resides on a server I manage, I know it’s getting backed up, I can see the log files of when it’s been accessed and by whom. Clouds typically offer none of this. For many, the lack of associated expense – in buying/maintaining a server, and backing it up – is worth the loss of this control.

Item 2 however is very debatable. And I’m casting my lot against cloud computing on this one. Start with iDisk. The password is sent securely but the data is not encrypted neither in transit nor resident on Apple’s servers. Google Docs and iWork.com both require passwords and offer SSL security, the same as what a bank might offer. Does that make them secure? The transmissions between my computer and their server, yes. But what about local security?  Business rules like Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO quality controls may apply but they are only as good as the people hired by the large companies. Let me offer a few links here that represent a big fat hole in the perception of good cloud security:

• Twitter/FaceBook terms of service. This AdvertisingAge article explores the nitty-gritty of Terms of Service for the ubiquitous social media sites.  Basically, your content belongs to you, but they can do whatever they want with it. Granted that’s a reasonable demand for them to function without liability, but I certainly wouldn’t want it to apply to my trade secrets; good thing they don’t fit in 140 characters. I suspect the same legalese exists in other terms of service.
• Google’s recent announcement that any Google Docs published and shared outside your domain will be exposed to web crawlers and thus included in Google search results. So an unsuspecting Google Docs user who didn’t know any better might suddenly find their business plan come up in a Google search for their company.
• The Microsoft T-Mobile Sidekick fiasco. I would expect nothing less from Microsoft but partisan slams aside, this is really embarrasing. And no one knows the true cause. It could be a simple technical oversight in that someone performed an upgrade without ensuring a good backup existed first. But it has been suggested that a disgruntled former Danger Sidekick employee took down the system intentionally – so much for internal security. If that’s your data on that cloud, kiss it goodbye. And because of the design of the device and service, there are no local backup copies to retrieve. Ouch.

Ultimately, a more benign but more common risk is that of Internet outages. Those of us in Douglas County, KS have seen our fair share of service outages recently – with Sunflower being offline for an entire day, and Baldwin City’s cable modem provider being out repeatedly thanks to their fiber line getting chopped by US-59 construction. No Internet = no cloud. If your “cloud”  is sitting in your building, you can continue to work while the Internet is offline.

One may argue that the people at Google are far more adept at computer security and staving off attacks than the average user, and they’d be right. But I counter that with the fact that we can put in reasonable security with encryption and firewalls – and you and I are a much smaller and less desirable target than Google.  Your employees (and mine) are directly accountable and more trustworthy than the nameless rabbles that work at Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

What did we at BestMacs decide to do with our very sensitive and important documents? Same thing we recommend you do: We built our own cloud. We wanted what iDisk brought to the table but we wanted the documents kept local, and the communication secure. So we built our own “iDisk” on our Mac OS X Server.

With Mac OS X Server, you can quite literally build most things you want from a cloud – file sharing, a website with easy-to-use blog and wikis, Internet email, secure instant messaging, shared calendars and address books, firewalls, VPN, and even Time Machine backups – all of it.  Remote, secure access is built-in. VPN from a remote laptop at a hotspot? Built-in. Secure access from an iPhone over 3G? Same.

Host it yourself on your own Internet connection. For all of our outages in Baldwin recently taking my Server offline, I went and got a Peplink multi-WAN router for about $300, and now have both cable and DSL. The likelihood of both going out at the same time is marginal, and the server still gets to live at my house (added benefit is that my wife who works from home will also never go offline).  Want your server to live on a faster, more reliable connection than your own? Try MacMiniColo.net. It’s still your server, your control – you just use MacMiniColo’s redundant power and Internet.

BestMacs still uses the cloud for some items; BOM is a cloud service. But that’s because we can’t find anything as good as BOM that will run on a local server. Google Docs, iDisk, push calendars, online backup?  No, Mac OS X Server can do them better than a cloud service. For security sake, we make a point of not storing passwords on BOM and instead put them and other BestMacs and clients’ confidential data on a secure wiki page on the Server.

How much $ are we talking here? Last week, Apple introduced a Mac Mini Server which includes a fully functional unlimited license of Mac OS X Server 10.6, and redundant hard drives for $999. If you have the hardware, the software is only $499. Installation and config is now easy enough that my team and I can build and deploy it in less than 10 hours – in fact a ten-hour prepaid block would probably have more than a few hours left over for support issues or expansion later.  We’ll gladly help you manage and support it, but you might not need us that often because it’s so easy to administer.

Bottom line is this: for not much money you can have an internal solution that is accessible even when the Internet is not, have full control over it, and make it more secure than any service out there.  Why wouldn’t you make your own cloud?  Let us help get you started, drop me an email or call today.  Better yet, drop by the Apple Store on the Plaza on Nov 11 at 3pm and I’ll give you a hands-on demo.

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