The threat of cloud providers closing is a very real one, and any business or indeed individual needs to be aware of the risks involved when purchasing cloud services. In theory, there is nothing stopping a cloud provider from closing its shutters tomorrow, and locking your data away from you. We need only look back to last year’s closure of Nirvanix to see the impact this can have on a business.
If businesses want to ensure that they are protected against a potential service shutdown, they need to gain as much control over their data as possible, to prevent becoming effectively powerless. Firstly, choose a type of service that’s available from numerous providers to make switching from one provider to another easy; plus put the practical tools in place to be able to follow through with this. The service you subscribe to must also be available in software form in order for you to run on-premise if you feel necessary.
Finally, use software which is published via an open source licence, as this allows the service to be scrutinised at a development level and prevents any nasty surprises from emerging at a later date. Using open source will also mean that it can be maintained by a third party further down the line, should your relationship with the original vendor end.
If you follow these guidelines a shutdown is no longer an issue as you have the flexibility to move to another provider at any time or, if you change your mind, run the service on-premise.