Within the last days I tested several solutions for backup and storage in the so called “cloud”, e.g. by service providers in the Internet. I learned some interesting things:

• Backup in the cloud is amongst the most mature cloud services
• At least in some cases
• There are still some weaknesses, including performance, platform support, and costs
• And few vendors provide a strong ITIL and SLA support
• And, like with all other cloud services, backup in the cloud requires a clear “cloud strategy”

If tested solutions of different vendors, as well local players in Germany and Switzerland as international vendors like Mozy. The best one I’ve tested was a local supplier in Switzerland, with a very detailed description of its service, comprehensive forms for SLAs and so on. And with a strong technical foundation, supporting virtually any type of operating system.

But, in general, most service providers I’ve tested delivered a reasonable solution for backup and restore, with easy to use software and very simple setups. These were sufficient for the home user and may be for small business. But at the level of medium-sized businesses, many of these solutions aren’t sufficient. No support for a central management of multiple servers is one of the typical shortcomings.

One of the issues is performance. With ADSL, backup always is relatively slow - at least compared with disk-to-disk backups. Compared with tapes, it isn’t that bad… A bigger issue was, in many cases, the platform support. Some solutions were Windows only, other didn’t support 64-bit versions of Windows Server. That is one of the aspects which always should be evaluated. Another aspect is the pricing. Some solutions started very low but backing up a few 100 GB - not uncommon today - was pretty expensive. Thus, prices should be calculated for expected amounts of backup data to compare different license models.

The documentation of services was often pretty weak - which is an issue if backup in the cloud becomes a vital part of the business continuity concept of IT. It is worth to talk with the vendors about this. For sure you can argue that you could just use two different providers for “failover” - but even then you should ensure that both provide a high quality of service.

Finally, backup in the cloud requires trust to the vendor. You should think about that. Whom do you really trust?

Besides this, backup is only one element of cloud strategies. The more services you use from the cloud, the less you have to care about backup, because that should be part of what the service provider delivers. Thus, long-term contracts might be a lock-in when more services are sourced from the cloud. In general, I strongly recommend to first define a cloud and virtualization strategy and than to start even with basic services like backup in the cloud. Even while backup is easy to implement, you should have a defined list of requirements for your cloud service providers.

The “cloud” - a pretty cloudy term, by the way - is becoming more and more important. Software as a Service and other forms of managed services, distributed computing, outsourcing, application virtualization and many other current evolvements are leading into a direction where IT becomes more and more distributed. IT will as well become more complex, because the management of distributed services together with existing internal services for users, which are as well internally as externally, which are increasingly mobile and which work with a growing number of different devices is much more heteregeneous than the “ancient” internal networks for internal users with their PC.

It is no surprise that Microsoft will address these changes as well. There are at least two good reasons for this:

• If there is money to be earnt, Microsoft isn’t far away (even while they are usually not amongst the first in emerging markets)
• In a distributed world, an operating system originally built for PCs won’t fit the requirements any more - and Microsoft will do everything to dominate the future OS market as well

Some weeks ago, the first details about the “Midori” project became public. Midori is the code name for a Microsoft project which deals with the current and upcoming changes for IT infrastructures. It looks like Midori will be a low level platform for running virtual machines. Some of them will be Windows machines or act like Windows. Others might be optimized for other scenarios. That is no surprise, if you have a look at Hyper-V - a layer below the classical operating system.

The interesting point are the consequences that might have. The dominant role of any of today’s operating systems might shrink. It is obvious that it is more efficient to run games in a specific game OS. Technical applications might require other operating systems. That might end up with virtual machines which are in fact applications with integrated minimized operating systems, using services provided by a lower level - like “Midori” could be.

There are good reasons for a fundamental change in the world of today’s operating systems. But that is not the only area where change should occur. The other open question is how to efficiently work with multiple devices in a mobile and distributed environment. That is not only about having one eMail system regardless of the device, but as well about having one configuration and management and so on - online and offline. This issue isn’t solved today. And approaches like Google Apps are far from really providing the solution.

I expect “Midori” not to be the predecessor of Windows but a part of many “incubator initiatives” Microsoft is working on. The reason is simple: It is not only about virtualization and the way operating systems will work in the future but as well about managing these infrastructures - from a user and an enterprise perspective.

Today, the first step has to be to accept that we will observe fundamental changes and that IT will change. The next step for every CIO is to cluster the “cloud” initiatives and trends and to build his roadmap to deal with these changes - integrating the best of the existing technologies and of cloud services today and over the next years.