What the Supreme Court's Aereo Decision Could Mean for the Cloud: Weekly Roundup

With the ongoing IRS data loss scandal and the Supreme Court's ruling against cloud technology startup Aereo, it's been an eventful week for IT pros. The stories highlight the clash between disruptive technologies and the prevalence of legacy systems still common in the largest government agencies. Read on for more on these stories, and other data protection news from the Web this week: 

Recently, the IRS has been under fire for losing two years' worth of emails sent by a former IRS official. Republican lawmakers are crying foul play, accusing the IRS of purposely eliminating the data. The agency claims that the data in question was lost when the former official's hard drive crashed in 2011. According to New York Times writer David Joachim, the IRS' story is plausible. Before the agency changed it's storage policies last year, it backed up emails onto one set of "old-fashioned" tape drives. Every six months, the agency backed up new data on the tapes and erased the old data. Joachim explains that many government organizations use older As Joachim explains, many government organizations use older email systems that don't backup to the cloud. 

Read more at the New York Times

The Supreme Court ruled this week that the TV streaming startup Aereo was in violation of U.S. copyright laws. Aereo's cloud technology allows users to pay $8 per month to watch and record over-the-air television broadcasts with a variety of devices. According to The Wall Street Journal, the lack of clarity around the court's ruling could mean "muddy waters" for other cloud providers. 

Read more at Wall Street Journal

There are plenty of strange causes for data center downtime, from thieves who cut a hole in a center's call to the floods caused by Hurricane Sandy. While outages are less frequent today due to improved practices in the industry, IT pros can't plan for everything. No matter the cause, whether a strange crime or a mundane software failure, it's more important than ever for IT to keep data safe and secure. 

Read more at Data Center Knowledge

In a guest post on MSPMentor, Dave Soblel, director of partner community at GFI MAX explains why MSPs should take on a more in-depth advising role with their customers. How? He recommends that MSPs present themselves as an outsourced CIO for clients. "[The] process of moving from being strangers, to acquaintances, to colleagues, to “trusted advisor” and then beyond to teammate (such as CIO) is best achieved by a genuine alignment between positioning, marketing, sales, and execution," Sobel says. This relationship can easily be created and nurtured, he says, through educating the customer, ongoing open communication and fulfilling the business goals the MSP and client set.

Read more at MSPMentor

Image via Can Stock Photo