Information Security & US & Life & Love & Fashion & Hacking & Passion

As the cost and convenience benefits of cloud computing become more compelling, more and more IT departments are taking a close look at moving large parts of their infrastructure out of their data centers.

While a year or two ago it was possible to dismiss many of the cloud offerings as too new and somewhat rickety, that objection no longer applies. For the industry-leading cloud vendors, the growing pains are essentially over and the services for storage, computing, load balancing and other functions are as good or better than what most IT departments are getting out of their data centers and are offered at extremely attractive prices.

The massive barrier that remains in front of a wholesale migration of IT to cloud computing is the problem of facing the worst case: How will an IT department deal with a major outage in the cloud or in the network that connects to the cloud? This is a different issue than everyday quality. No matter how substantial a cloud offering it is, as with all computing resources, massive failure is possible. This week, the JargonSpy takes a look at the different approaches that can be taken to managing disasters in the cloud.

The first and most important step that savvy IT managers take when deciding what can be moved to the cloud is to separate infrastructure into various groups according to its importance. In every company, there is a set of applications and infrastructure so important that nobody outside the company can be trusted to run them. But for most businesses, the bulk of their infrastructure could go into the cloud. The definition for what is safe for the cloud is different for every business, but if you can live without an application for two days, it is probably safe to put it into the cloud.

So, once you have decided what you can put into the cloud, how do you manage the risk of disaster? One approach that can offer some comfort in certain situations--service level agreements (SLA) that state a level of performance that must be met and remedies in case of failure--is a non-starter for the cloud. If you take a close look at the SLAs in the cloud, you'll see that they guarantee almost nothing--not even that the service will continuously operate. The remedies are similarly weak. You may be able to cancel a contract or get your money back or get credits to pay for future services, but that's about it.

To be fair, SLAs in other areas of computing and outsourcing aren't much better. Vendors are only comfortable offering strong SLAs if they are being paid a fortune or if they have a dedicated architecture to solve a well-understood problem.

Who's hiring when everyone else is firing?

In Pictures: Top 10 Recession-Proof Jobs

When Forbes first looked at the most recession-proof jobs in July, there were 8.8 million Americans unemployed. As of October, that number had risen to 10.1 million and looks set to rise further.

Among the 500 largest U.S. public companies alone, Forbes has totted up almost 90,000 layoffs since Nov. 1 (see our Layoff Tracker).

But there are still opportunities, the most abundant being in sales, customer support and accounting, according to the latest data from Jobfox.com, a job board founded by the creator of CareerBuilder.com. These jobs rank highest on a list of most recession-proof.

In Pictures: Top 10 Most Recession-Proof Jobs

"Skilled professionals remain in demand," said Rob McGovern, chief executive of McLean, Va.-based Jobfox.com.

To determine its ranking of its 25 most recession-proof jobs, Jobfox collected a list of more than 4,000 job openings in a 120-day period ended Oct. 28. The report also includes information about current median salary ranges and desired median salary ranges as defined by a random sample of job candidates.

Related Quotes

HRB

$17.36

+1.59

Get Quotes:

Sales and business development representatives top the list. In tough economic times, it's important for companies to develop the business rather than cower into a corner. The job, which is largely based on commission, pays in a salary range of $55,000 to $65,000 a year.

If peddling goods or services isn't your strong suit, try the frustration end of the business. The holiday shopping season yields a torrent of calls to businesses from customers wanting either information or a refund. Account and customer-support jobs rank No. 2 on the list. The job pays in a range of $25,000 to $35,000.

Demand for the game console is still strong despite the down economy.