Cloud applications COULD be highly available...but read the fine print

I had previously stated that it's more risky to depend upon an outside service to host your applications than it is to host your applications yourself.

Of course, I was wrong.

When I host my applications myself, I am dependent upon my own computer software and hardware. My computer software and hardware is not perfect - something that I know well after having a hard drive die on me a few years ago.

Now cloud applications aren't 100% reliable either, but you can design your cloud systems for high availability. If there's a failure of one of the cloud servers, the system would simply switch to another server, with no interruption of service. (Unless things go wrong.)

Of course, it costs money to provide that high availability, and it costs money to keep a system up all the time. And when a company is faced with profit issues...well, they may just cut costs a little bit.

Ask Dave Veffer about this. He's had some intermittent problems accessing Adobe Creative Cloud, the cloud-based replacement for Adobe's former applications that you hosted yourself. Now Adobe's a big company, so you'd think that they'd want to have their applications available. Veffer found otherwise when he had a problem accessing Adobe Creative Cloud, contacted support, and received this message from the support person:

I am sorry to inform that due to maintaince (sic) we are unable to access the applications of Adobe hence it will not be possible for me to fix the issue at this moment.

When Veffer asked how long this maintenance would last, he received this reply:

It will take 2-3 hours.

Well, obviously Adobe isn't promising "five nines" (99.999%) availability for Adobe Creative Cloud. If Adobe were providing 99.999% availability, downtime would be less than six minutes per YEAR. Now perhaps five nines is overkill for an application such as Adobe Creative Cloud, but what level of downtime is reasonable? Veffer was faced with a deadline in two hours when this happened, and it appears that Adobe Creative Cloud won't be available until after the deadline has passed.

What availability does Adobe promise for its cloud products? I was curious about this, so I checked Adobe's terms and found this paragraph, in all caps:

13.1 THE SITE, SERVICES, AND MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED BY ADOBE “AS IS,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, QUIET ENJOYMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, ADOBE AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT (a) THE SITE, SERVICES OR MATERIALS WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR WILL BE CONSTANTLY AVAILABLE, UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE; (b) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SITE, SERVICES, OR MATERIALS WILL BE EFFECTIVE, ACCURATE, OR RELIABLE; (c) THE QUALITY OF THE SITE, SERVICES, OR MATERIALS WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS; OR THAT (d) ANY ERRORS OR DEFECTS IN THE SITE, SERVICES, OR MATERIALS WILL BE CORRECTED. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM ADOBE OR THROUGH OR FROM USE OF THE SERVICES SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE TERMS.

Now one can understand such terms when you're getting a free service, such as the services provided by Google. But when you're a paying customer of Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe isn't even willing to guarantee that the service will be available, that's pretty worrisome.