No silicon lining after Amazon's 'cloud' computer crash PERMANENTLY wipes customers' data - 28th Apr 2011

Amazon faced further headaches today after it emerged a crash that caused thousands of websites to shut down also resulted in the loss valuable customer data.

Businesses that relied on Amazon's huge cloud computer network to store and run their sites have been told last week's catastrophic crash also permanently erased data from many of those affected.

The failure of Amazon's 'bomb-proof' EC2 network last week caused thousands of websites to stop working, damaging the reputation of the technology.

Amazon - one of the world's foremost advocates of cloud computing - has remained tight-lipped on the crash, refusing to reveal how many companies use its web services or how many were affected by the outage.

Cloud computing offers individuals and businesses the ability to 'rent' virtual storage space from providers such as Amazon.

In exchange, cloud providers host websites and other data in vast 'server farms' or buildings packed with expensive and energy intensive computers.

The market for cloud services is expected to grow to $102.1 billion in 2012, up from $68.3 billion in 2010, according to research firm Gartner.

Although Amazon said they had lost only a small percentage of the total data stored, the huge capacity their of their EC2 system means hundreds, if not thousands of websites could potentially be affected. Read More

WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?

The concept of cloud computing has been around almost since the start of the computer revolution in the early 70's.

Instead of storing files - including pictures, music, data or even whole websites - on one's own computer hardware, cloud providers rent out space on their machines instead.

Stored in vast warehouses around the world, the data is, in theory, much safer and much more readily accessible.

These 'server farms' can process the data at a much faster rate than an average home computer and have super-fast internet connections, helping smaller firms cut costs maintaining their own hardware.

In recent years, several well-known technology brands have also tried to push consumers towards cloud services, with little to nothing physically 'saved' on a user's home pc.