Amazon and Google web services have 'take it or leave it' t's and c's, says Wolfson IT boss

Most services hosted internally at electronics firm - 'we don't trust cloud providers'

Director of information services and security at Wolfson Microelectronics, Andrew Ralston, railed against cloud services providers on a panel at the Infosecurity Europe conference today.

In a discussion about maintaining data security in the supply chain when working with cloud providers, Ralston revealed that his company avoids the cloud because "we don't trust cloud providers".

Speaking later to Computing, Ralston registered surprise at the willingness of his fellow panellists, including The Post Office's head of information security, Mark Pearce, to trust cloud providers with critical data and services.

"Knowing where your resources are is getting harder," Pearce had said earlier. "It's a constant battle to know exactly where your data resides, and to make sure that agreements you've put in place are kept to."

In response, Ralston told Computing:

"I'm responsible for information systems and information security within my organisation, and I like to have a clear control over my responsibilities.

"What I'm finding with cloud suppliers is; you don't actually have that control. You can't speak to the likes of Amazon or Google, because they don't actually speak to anyone. You go to the website, and you can't actually do anything with the terms and conditions. You can read them, you can sign up, and that's it. It's take it or leave it."

Ralston added that when services such as Microsoft 365 or Google Docs go down, "what they expect you to do is twiddle your thumbs until service is restored. You can't speak to anyone or shout at them if you have a problem".

Working with the likes of Nokia and Samsung on an international level, Ralston described how a "24/7" business presence is required to keep component shipping working to standard.

"So our sevices are almost entirely internally hosted," said Ralston. "We have Rackspace backing up our data, and have more outages with them than with our own systems. But when you contact them, they say they'll get it back up and running as fast as they can."

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Amazon and Google web services have 'take it or leave it' t's and c's, says Wolfson IT boss

Most services hosted internally at electronics firm - 'we don't trust cloud providers'

Ralston added that Wolfson is able to spurn the cloud because it is a large business.

"I think if you're a very small company, [external cloud suppliers are] probably the only way now," Ralston said. "If you employ 10, 20 or 50 people, having IT guys is an expensive overhead."

"I do not believe cloud-based computing is cheap. I was surprised my panellists said it was now such good value, because I don't agree."

Ralston said that it's harder for users to "run away with non-existent systems", but that putting data and services in the hands of the cloud can lead to compulsive expansion of services.

"[Suppliers] want that, and then you're tied into this ever-expanding IT cost," said Ralston. "So it's debatable to me whether the cloud is actually cost-effective.

"And I don't think anyone can negotiate with Amazon or Google for proper control here. So I'm retaining healthy scepticism. There may be opportunity coming over the horizon, but I don't think we're there yet.

"Companies are beginning to sell cloud as an internet service, which I guess is meant to make it sound sexier, but it's not much different to what was being done five years ago."