A particular story that gained popularity last week has really caught my attention and got me thinking.  If you didn’t know a US Judge has just ordered Microsoft to release emails from servers stored in a foreign Datacentre (based in Ireland). The decision isn’t immediate and gives MS time to appeal, but it’s not looking good for those who think that data stored overseas is safe from the US government. This comes at a time when not many have forgotten about the revelations from Edward Snowden that the NSA and GCHQ have been helping themselves to all manner of data stored both abroad and locally.
As SharePoint people  – who are being encouraged to adopt Azure and Office 365 – what does this mean for you? Will this change the viewpoint of the organization that you are working in? If this US ruling sticks, what’s the future for global US Tech companies in general? Is this decision so big that it will stifle the development of Cloud Services? Or, is it something that will eventually be circumvented by those who can afford to implement a complex network of international companies that can operate under different jurisdictions.
Thoughts?
Yes this is a huge concern which in my opinion has not received the serious attention that it deserves.
Microsoft knows that it blows a huge hole in the privacy of data stored anywhere in the world. This is why they are appealing the ruling. I do not think they will succeed.
I agree with other comments here that Cloud is perfect for many small businesses who do not need to store commercially sensitive information in the cloud. Office 365 allows them to outperform may larger companies without the overheads of employing specialised support people.
I also agree with comments that for larger companies a possible route is the hybrid model but this also brings its own risks. At the end of the day the most secure way to store critical data is to have a secure vault, guarded by armed soldiers, with no connection to the internet or to any other system. The only user would be someone who is given access to the room. USBs, floppy – any way of transferring data would be prevented. If a hard disk needed to be replaced smash the old one to pieces with a sledge hammer and shred the remains.  There is no such thing as a 100% secure system.
So we have to take reasonable steps to secure business critical data. Opening up data to the Cloud is a big risk that has to be managed appropriately.
I also note that in recent weeks there have been repeated Microsoft Cloud outages with people unable to access for sometimes days at a time. I am getting tired of the Microsoft partner site repeatedly being unable to log me on – obviously cannot cope with the traffic so this does not bode well for the future as more and more people use the Microsoft Cloud.
