Do Comcast's Internet 'glitches&apos

Most operations have backup DNS servers. Even the GCN lab has a backup DNS system, so one would suspect that Comcast, being in the business of Internet access, would as well have backup. I doubt Comcast would admit if hackers were bringing down its networks across the country, however it's not as if Comcast hasn't been hacked earlier.

Certainly, Internet access is a target for hackers, who can cause quite a disruption. It's one of the reasons I'm not as gung-ho about cloud computing as everyone else seems to be.

Federal, state and local governments seem to be tripping over themselves to get into the cloud; GCN has had many cloud application stories in recent years. Now there is an inherent danger in this approach that the recent outages revealed. If all of your business and government files and programs exist "in the cloud," what happens when Internet access goes down?

In the past, having problems with Internet access was annoying, now you could always work locally with your programs and files stored at your office. Yet with cloud computing, a link is being inserted into the chain between you and your data. And the recent attacks show that the chain, which is more of a lifeline, is far from secure. If you move vital applications and data to the could and your Internet access goes down, you're sunk.

Hi John,Thanks for the interesting topic. Downtime is by all means a threat to cloud computing and that's why it's a good idea for organizations using the cloud on a regular basis to deploy failover in case of outages. One way to do this is through an appliance called a link balancer that aggregates multiple ISPs and in case of an Internet outage, fails traffic over to the link that's all in all working. That way, when one line is severed, traffic is re-directed and connectivity is maintained.Renee Annis, Elfiq Networks

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