Corporate migration to Cloud platforms is in full swing and many IT professionals are touting the advent of a new era in collaboration and computing. Consumer-focused services, most commonly those pertaining to online file storage and file sharing, have preceded the influx of business-oriented Cloud infrastructures almost as though they were a test market of sorts.

But making the jump from the typical business Cloud platform to the Enterprise level could prove a much larger leap, and evidence pointing to that challenge continues to surface. The next move is learning lessons from Cloud failures and overcoming the obstacles. Let’s take a look at some of the recent occurrences from which we can glean insight from the missteps of the pioneers in the front of the pack.

Dropbox Security Breach

This week, the consumer-focused Cloud service Dropbox lit up headlines across the web after enduring a significant security breach. Dropbox and a large swath of its users were subsequently hit with a massive spam attack. News reports indicate that an internal employee’s account was hacked, most likely using a stolen password.

The culprit allegedly stole a project document containing user email addresses from the compromised employee’s account. Thereafter, the hacker went to work spamming the users with a deluge of gambling website ads. After further investigation, technicians discovered that many of the affected users were using their Dropbox credentials on other websites – a common, albeit risky, practice that security proponents staunchly discourage.

The setback for Dropbox is especially disheartening for the company, as the firm’s focus has been largely aimed at the Enterprise space. Having successfully staked a claim to the file sharing market in the consumer realm, Dropbox has held strong confidence in its pursuit of the sought-after Enterprise space. Naysayers are coming out of the woodwork in droves with just the opposite message in mind.

Amazon and Netflix Outage

Back in late June, we posted the news story about Amazon’s EC2 Compute Cloud failures and the Netflix outage. Amazon’s  EC2 system in Virginia went offline due to power outages caused by severe storms in the area. The outage knocked the Netflix service offline, frustrating the movie-streaming masses for a short time.

A couple of weeks prior to that event, the EC2 went down for about 7 hours – a near eternity in the perspective of ultra-speed ‘internet time’. Given the big scale brand that is Amazon, and the outspoken trumpeting of its Compute Cloud in previous months, the setback added insult to injury.

If only an isolated singular incident had occurred, the blowback wouldn’t put such a blemish on Enterprise Cloud concepts, but the fact that the outage was repeated sparks a concern.

Lessons Learned

Looking at these two big-brand blunders, many IT pros would declare the Cloud unfit for Enterprise use or in any manner that widens the service scope to massive scales. But every technology advancement has its pitfalls and failures. The take-away for anyone in the Cloud, whether vendor, consumer or business owner, is to learn from the mistakes and take a more proactive approach.

We recently published an article outlining the effectiveness of Managed Service Providers as a ‘fail-safe’ of sorts for common Cloud breakdowns. Preventative measures and hands-on maintenance under the supervision of technology professionals are key components to the contingency plan. Careful planning and documentation can further allay any emergent events.

Amazon’s lesson was squarely focused on redundancy. Most of us can agree that we aren’t likely to see another power outage cause such a crippling effect to Amazon’s EC2. That’s because they have taken preventative measures to insure against a similar crisis in the future. The luxury for those of us following the trail they blaze is that we enjoy the lesson without the consequence of the misstep.

The lesson Dropbox is learning is much different, and in many eyes more impactful because of the security concerns. Nevertheless, it’s a lesson just the same and avoiding similar occurrences in the future will come from reinforcing vulnerabilities found during the ‘learning process’. Given the significance of hot button issues like privacy, confidentiality and security these days, Cloud service providers will react with their own preventative measures gleaned from Dropbox’s disaster.

The enterprise space is still a viable target for the Cloud. The new technology provides more security and versatility, acting as an FTP replacement, an unprecedented collaborative tool and an infrastructure of accessibility to rival any before it. But at this point, for those of us still watching and learning, we could end up only having ourselves to blame for future failures if we don’t take advantage of the lessons unfolding at the front lines.