Some cloudy thoughts

Nikolai

http://goo.gl/VW08P

Richard

How about an executive summary for the three or four of us who do not have/want Facebook accounts?

basflt

richard wrote: »

how about an executive summary for the three or four of us who do not have/want facebook accounts?

+1 !!!

Sam

+2

Nikolai

Don't have a facebook account? you guys...
Oh well, here's the entire post

TO THE CLOUD, AND BEYOND
or DEMISE OF PCs (not just IBM - all of them)

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The well-thought over Apple cloud-centric strategy presented today at WWDC made me think once again about the general direction of our everyday computing needs..
Why do we need our local machines? Boxy desktops, cumbersome laptops?
Everything we do with them, we do electronically. The documents we type are already on the corporate servers if not in the cloud itself (dropbox, anybody?) Cloud technologies allows for leasing CPU power just as easily. And consideing our "local" CPUs are idle 90% of the time, even if you get to pay for those cycles, it's not gonna be a big deal. In fact, considering ROI, it can be cheaper, especially since you won't have to worry about updaring the brand new CPU you have just purchased yesterday and whice became obsolete this mornig. Anything document-oriented - creating, processing - is definitely cloud-bound. Let's consider a software development: why can't I access the latest and greatest instance of Visual Studio directly from the cloud, and have all my projects up there, triple backed-up, versioned and shared with my team?
Communications... Same thing. For anybody who's already using gmail or live mail, or any other type of web-based communications it's already a done deal. Our communications are in the cloud already.
So, what do we really need our personal computers for? Unless you're dealing with massive original content (photos, videos), which are yet difficult to upload (an average pro shooter can easily end up with several dozen gigabytes of images over a weekend), you really don't need a desktop or laptop. What you need is a good keyboard (that is if you type a lot and/or use complex applications - for the rest of us a soft keyboart on a tablet shoud be enough), a good screen (or several:-), maybe a mouse or a pen - and a decent internet connection.
Remote access already taught us we don't have to have a physical machine proximity. Virtualization taught us we don't have to have a physical machine at all. Speedy wireless networks proved we don't need cables to transfer screen images. The only cables you may still need are the power ones for the screens - at least until the time the scientists figure out the possibility of projecting 50" images into a thin air on a single AAA battery for a year;-)
With wireless accessories and most of the the content in the cloud, I can see that the era of personal computers is coming to an end.
I, for one, am not sad. It doesn't mean the end of computing per se. It simply makes it more interesting - and more fun!

Richard

Well, maybe someday, but for me it's going to be a while.

First, there's the matter of performance. Network bandwidth and latency costs have to become zero (which is impossible) for it to be as fast as my local machine. Remember that the cloud is being built with massive numbers of plain old PCs. Their performance is not any better than my machine, which I am not sharing with anybody.

Then there's the issue of trust. If I get into a dispute for any reason with my cloud vendor, they have my data, programs and all the intimate details of my life, for all I know. Tough bargaining situation for me. I suppose this is not insurmountable--I trust my power company enough that I don't have a backup generator, though I do think about getting a UPS from time to time. But I'm certainly not about to put all my eggs in somebody else's basket any time soon.

There's also the issue of business fragmentation. Big players are fighting tooth and nail to control as much of our digital lives as they possibly can. I can control what I have locally, but if one vendor decides that its cloud will only support apps from their store and content from their partners, well, that's not going to work for me. Again, this is not an insurmountable problem--I can pick up my phone and call any number in the world and perhaps the time will come when the same applies to data and programs. Perhaps, but not yet. I'll believe it when I see it.

Then there's the issue of security. Gold is hard to move from Fort Knox, but as we've seen repeatedly, data is easy to steal. Nobody is making a concerted effort to break into my machine, but half the black hats on the planet must be figuring out how they can exploit the cloud. It's going to be a long war.

So color me skeptical for now. The cloud may well serve people who don't have anything of value to protect and only use their computers for entertainment. For the foreseeable future, I'm not interested.

Nikolai

There is no single "cloud" (unless you're talking iCloud;-) It's a term, a concept, just like the "internet". And, just like there are also "intranets", there are private clouds (and mutiple public ones).
For now, many of us seem confident that our beloved images are safe and secure with SM, which, in turn, uses Amazon S3, one the oldest and most mature (yet still just a few years old) cloud implementations. Granted, we still have back copies, but I'd rather have them automatically synced to 3-4 *different* clouds that deal with old harddrives, BluRay disks and whatever media we may have (if any).

ThatCanonGuy

I like my desktop and laptop just fine, thank you ;~). Privacy and security are an issue for me as well: I'd rather have my data on my external hard drive on my desk than in a cloud. Same reason I don't do Facetwit: all my personal info is on there for everyone to see, and even if my info isn't publicized, the social site still has it. I bet google employees can see the hidden info. Everything on the internet gets archived to servers in Europe every day... if you put something on the internet, chances are it ain't comin' back . And any photos uploaded to social sites are the property of the social site (!?!).

m a r k

All the people who are pledging their allegiance to the Jobs Cloud and are suddenly shouting about what all the other cloud companies have been shouting about for years are still missing the point.

80% of this planets land mass does not have access to the internet (or any other network for that matter) and for those that do, as soon as they step out of their front door, it becomes expensive and difficult to get online.

But the marketing people seem to avoid mentioning this in the ads.

People will jump on the cloud band wagon now that iCloud is THE next big thing but are going to be very disappointing once they start realizing that they can't take it on holiday with them.

angevin1

Nikolai wrote: »

Don't have a facebook account? you guys...
Oh well, here's the entire post

With wireless accessories and most of the the content in the cloud, I can see that the era of personal computers is coming to an end.

Sounds interesting for certain. I don't have the security concerns many must have. I'm one of the folks who can generate large amounts of Video GB's seamlessly. So Storage has been an issue. Also, now that I live, where I live, I am relegated to Verizon MIFI, which using the trusty Speednet, shows my connection speed to be 1.2Mbps Max. Along with that a 10GB per-Month Max ( Which I pay extra for!) and I don't think we're talking Cloud time here anytime Soon. Besides, I live in Georgia. They have lots of interesting things and names of things here. I'll bet it'll be Called the Ga.-WaterMellon or SkyChitlin or something er other.

BradfordBenn

To me the cloud stops working when I am in the clouds. In other words, the big challenge that I see for those that jump wholly into a cloud is what happens when they lose connectivity. It can be very troublesome. I have actually had to work at solutions to keep things still functioning smoothly when not attached to the Internet - such as when on a United flight.

ian408

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cloud computing just moves everything off to where you can't see it and takes away some of the day-to-day management of resource. Off to a trailer park in Oregon

Aside from the obvious security risks, there are contractual obligations that might prevent you from using "the cloud". As an example; some software licenses don't allow for the remote execution of applications. Either by someone in a remote office or from a remote data center. You may also have contracts between clients that preclude the mixing of data (their stuff must be compartmentalized). All of which is difficult should you decide to move to a cloud environment. Then there's the issue of business continuity--what happens if your provider bankrupt, If their centers are compromised or their policies and procedures are not carried out?

Cloud computing is a great idea but there are many obstacles that need to be overcome before the PC dies and I'd predict that just when you think it's dead, it will come back as it has in the past.