• SELECT * FROM can be acceptable and a normal requirement (think data warehousing, integration and application services). A common example is selects all states and provinces to generate a list for a form prompt (a smart design keeps those results cached). Generally speaking, it is not ideal in regards to end user queries and it is a reality that can be addressed by policies. Regardless of policy, it is always going to happen for as long as we provide non technical staff with tools that require technical training.

    Now, take that scenario to the cloud. Can those services fully integrate with one another from a data perspective. In my experience, the answer is sometimes. In terms of development costs, software licensing costs, hosting costs, et al. The ROI for public cloud solutions isn't always as robust as they are in internally hosted private cloud environments. In many cases, public cloud offerings are not an option at all until the cloud service fully aligns with the features offered in the internally hosted version of the product. My internal bandwidth is exponentially greater and faster than my bandwidth to cloud services. Changing that requires spending more dollars on bigger circuits that are much more expensive that the VM's I host internally.

    And don't get me started on security or lack thereof in the cloud world...