Can You Trust the Cloud?

What is "trust"? And what should we look for before we adopt cloud services?

A recent survey by Apollo highlighted the chief concerns that users have in adopting cloud services. The top 3 issues in this and many other surveys are Performance, Availability and Security:

If cloud-based services are going to move into the mainstream, then clearly vendors need to address these issues.

But how? "Trust" is a word that is often used by vendors in an attempt to satisfy these concerns. There are many vendors claiming trust but actually having very little in the way of proof points to backup claims that "they can be trusted" with your business.

Availability and Performance can both be measured, but doing so in a meaningful way for users is not so easy. Many availability measures are little more than "ping tests" that demonstrate a web server is there. That doesn't go far enough. And performance?

I suggest that it is vendors who test on a regular and highly frequent basis, in the way I use their services, measure these tests and then transparently publish the results who will build my trust, and perhaps secure my business.

If the supplier is prepared to provide a guarantee too, even better.