Check out the SANS tidbit below and links to articles.  I use gmail, but 
every five minutes fetchmail grabs new messages and copies them to my 
Ubuntu box -- all of my email is stored there (using RAID 1) and then 
backed up somewhere else.  I can't see myself using "the cloud" without 
retaining local copies.

Mike


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SANS NewsBites                April 29, 2011             Vol. 13, Num. 034
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TOP OF THE NEWS
   --Some Customer Data Permanently Destroyed in Amazon Cloud Crash
(April 28, 2011)

The crash of Amazon's cloud services not only inconvenienced its customers 
because of web site inaccessibility, but in some cases, data were 
permanently destroyed.  A thorough explanation of the crash has not yet 
been offered.  Two businesses that use Amazon's cloud services managed to 
continue running undisrupted during the crash because they had taken 
measures themselves to protect themselves from such an incident.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/28/6549775-amazons-cloud-crash-destroyed-many-customers-data
http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402385

Editor's Notes:

(Ranum): You can put your data in the cloud - it's getting it back that's 
the hard part.

(Schultz): Amazon has an excellent reputation as a cloud service provider; 
I am baffled by what happened. At the same time, there is a huge lesson to 
be learned here--never, never completely rely on a cloud provider for 
anything--always have a plan B, as the two businesses mentioned in this 
story so nicely illustrate.