Cloud Computing Reliability—Failure is an Option

Cloud reliability is a measure of the probability that the cloud delivers the services it is designed for. This implies that the service is available, and performs in the way intended. When we use cloud services, it is easy to assume that they will deliver what they are designed and marketed to deliver. However, the cloud, just like everything else we develop, will fail at some time, due to hardware failures from natural disasters or human issues, unexpected software failures, or massive-scale cyberattacks such as Distributed Denial of Service attacks. It is not a matter of if, but rather when. It is also not a matter of a specific provider; they have all had outages.