If The Clouds Burst

Intelligent Technology from Forbes Magazine
If The Clouds Burst
Andy Greenberg,

NIST official warns that cloud computing could face a banking-style meltdown.
The much-hyped vision of information technology's cloud computing future is often described with an analogy to the power industry: Just as we pipe in electricity from a central utility, the comparison goes, so will we someday pay for processing and storage as utility-like services in a central location, a model that's more efficient, more flexible and cheaper.

But cloud computing, argues the National Institute of Science and Technology's (NIST) cloud computing lead Peter Mell, can also be described with an analogy to another industry, and one with a less savory track record: banking. In a cloud computing scenario, as in banking, businesses and governments entrust their precious digital assets to a single central repository--one that's more interested in maximizing profit than in creating a costly safety buffer. (read More here)