There is another drawback to relying on the cloud. One that has manifested itself in the past year and has absolutely nothing to do with data processing and computers. And that is the ideological differences between user and provider(s) as evidenced by the de-platforming of Parler by AWS and the subsequent refusal of any services by other cloud providers.

While that may be an isolated and trivial incident, it is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent flap. Who is to say if other companies will not be denied services because of their management’s political views or the cloud provider’s dislike or opposition to the client’s product(s).

I have updated the article accordingly as per your suggestion. Thanks.

Thanks for the heads up. Clearly, you have made strong and valid points. I will update the guide accordingly.

As far as I am concerned, there is one big disadvantage to the cloud – your data and your processes can be held hostage subject to the corporate whims and policies of the cloud provider. Should the provider go out of business and you relied heavily on his services, you may also be forced out of business. At the very least, you will lose access to your vital data. When you store your data on a third-party server, it may be convenient and less costly but you give up control of that data to the server owner.

The frequency of ransomware attacks on self-contained computer systems and the amounts of money involved has been steadily increasing. Just think how much easier and more devastating a ransomware attack on your cloud provider can be to you.

At least a self-contained IT installation keeps its own backups. When most of your IT installation exists only in the cloud, the cloud provider not only has your data but also the backups. Hence, you cannot restore the data from backups and be up and running. Your company is dead in the water.

“4. Security”

Security may not be as much of an advantage as you make it out to be. While there is security in the physical device redundancy of a cloud data center, the cloud provider’s digital security is no better than anybody else’s. Data breaches of supposedly very secure data centers occur with disturbing frequency, compromising tens, if not hundreds, of millions of records.