Cloud storage is great until your vendor goes out of business
A judge has ordered data centre provider Iron Mountain to help Nine PBS recover a 70-year digital archive after the station lost access when its cloud-storage supplier, Open Source Storage, ceased operating. The case highlights the risks of relying on a single cloud provider for irreplaceable material, particularly when contractual relationships can complicate access to data.
Nine PBS says the archive includes programmes, videos and photographs documenting St Louis history. Its access was cut off immediately in March rather than after the expected 30-day retrieval period; the court has now required the station to appoint a third-party specialist to retrieve the data without affecting other clients’ records, with a further hearing possible if recovery proves difficult.
- Judge orders cooperation to recover Nine PBS’s 70-year archive.
- Cloud supplier’s collapse left the station unable to access its data.
- The case underlines the value of independent backups.
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Cloud storage means keeping files on remote computer systems run by another company, rather than on equipment owned by the organisation itself. It is widely used because it can be cheaper and easier to expand than maintaining private servers, but access depends on the provider and the contracts behind the service.
Nine PBS is a public television station serving the St Louis area. Its archive contains decades of local programmes, video and photographs, making it a record of the region’s history as well as material that may be difficult or impossible to replace.
Iron Mountain operates data centres, which house the physical equipment on which digital services run. The dispute illustrates how several companies can be involved in storing data, and why organisations with important records often consider backups, clear exit arrangements and ways to recover files if a supplier closes.