Last week, in the midst of the hellish torrential downpours that were gracing the east coast, I experienced a severe form of umbrella envy. My umbrella = red, cost me two dollars, purchased hastily in a metro station in DC a few minutes before a job interview. Four other people’s umbrellas = large, dome-shaped, clear plastic bubbles that enabled them to stay dry and see what was coming towards them down the sidewalk.
Transparency is key, I think, in feeling secure about most endeavors, be it data storage, or, navigating a flooded storm drain on a crowded city street. Several of the comments posted about this article that’s hanging out over at Techcrunch highlight the need or desire for transparency where business and data are concerned. People seem to be voicing concerns about being able to understand precisely how their data is going to be stored, and where–information that I’ve always found readily available at ElephantDrive.
It’s great to have tools that “just work”, that are swift, reliable, and affordable. But it’s also fantastic to understand how they really work, and to not have to place blind faith in a system whose inner workings are somewhat of a mystery.
