Nothing wrong with using the cloud as long as you really understand what you're getting yourself into.
* Use a vendor specific extension - e.g. EBS + snapshots to mount customer data volumes - make sure you can work around it easily if you move to another provider.
* Backup data inside the same cloud provider? - make sure you backup the backups in case of catastrophic cloud provider failure - not doing that? then you need to understand what your risk profile is?
* Only use 1 provider? What is your strategy if they fail, temporarily or permanently? Where is your data? How do you fail if they fail?
So on and so on - these are standard considerations in a business risk analysis / disaster recovery plan - but I many IT shops in the cloud are staffed by people who are great at code, but have never dealt with the vagaries of business practice - not their "fault" - but it is a blind spot I see quite often.
* Use a vendor specific extension - e.g. EBS + snapshots to mount customer data volumes - make sure you can work around it easily if you move to another provider. * Backup data inside the same cloud provider? - make sure you backup the backups in case of catastrophic cloud provider failure - not doing that? then you need to understand what your risk profile is? * Only use 1 provider? What is your strategy if they fail, temporarily or permanently? Where is your data? How do you fail if they fail?
So on and so on - these are standard considerations in a business risk analysis / disaster recovery plan - but I many IT shops in the cloud are staffed by people who are great at code, but have never dealt with the vagaries of business practice - not their "fault" - but it is a blind spot I see quite often.