Cloud based data management

So you've finally done it. You had an idea, or successfully nicked one; you wrote some code, or had it written. The customers flocked to buy licences, or perhaps the unpaid Web-2.0 peon hordes spewed content in an endless stream while you booked ads on the eyeballs and waxed fat. Maybe that last bit never actually happened, but you managed to convince people it would and walked away after the IPO/buyout laughing and laughing and laughing.

Alternatively, you were born into the ruling family of an oil kingdom, or the property-owning oligarchy of a developing nation. Maybe you didn't inherit anything and never got involved with any kind of new idea; you just bought and sold humdrum stuff – real estate, comedic pieces of stockmarket paper, whatever – and did really well.

But you're a billionaire, in the I-was-in-Microsoft-early league, along with the Third-World oligarchs and oil princes. You're so rich that buying consumer goods is a real problem for you – you simply can't find expensive enough stuff to really properly show off your wealth. Ordinary middle-class scum can have fun buying a mobile, a computer, a barbecue or maybe a car, better in some way than that possessed by their envious friends; but it's difficult for you.

In the old days, before proper personal technology, it was easier to display one's prosperity. Legend tells of a long-ago episode involving noted Oz tycoon Kerry Packer, in which he got into an argument over drinks at home regarding the details of a cricket match which had taken place some years previously.

Nowadays, any ordinary sports obsessive could slot in his treasured VHS tape or DVD, fire up his PVR file or call down some VoD goodness and so settle matters. But back then there was none of that. Packer, however, had the answer: he simply phoned a TV channel which he controlled and told them to interrupt what they were showing and re-run the relevant match.

SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had