Here's the problem with cloud computing
Tim
Southwest PA Icrontian
I was just watching an ad for a Kindle Fire, and this reminded me of something.
Everyone talks about cloud computing like it is the next best thing. And it may be, up to a point. Here's what you need to ask yourself -- what if the cloud isn't there one day?
It could be any number of things. A simple hardware failure, a Terminator movie type virus, or terrorists.
We get so used to having things a certain way, and it becomes a real problem to lose it. Jeff Foxworthy once talked about watching tv when he was young and having 3 channels, and if the president was on, his night was shot.
Someday, the big internet and internet cloud is going to have a problem. It may last only a day or 2 or shut it down forever. And it's going to be a disaster.
So many will rely on the cloud to handle their stuff and then they will lose it all.
So take the time to download and save things and don't assume the cloud will always be there.
Everyone talks about cloud computing like it is the next best thing. And it may be, up to a point. Here's what you need to ask yourself -- what if the cloud isn't there one day?
It could be any number of things. A simple hardware failure, a Terminator movie type virus, or terrorists.
We get so used to having things a certain way, and it becomes a real problem to lose it. Jeff Foxworthy once talked about watching tv when he was young and having 3 channels, and if the president was on, his night was shot.
Someday, the big internet and internet cloud is going to have a problem. It may last only a day or 2 or shut it down forever. And it's going to be a disaster.
So many will rely on the cloud to handle their stuff and then they will lose it all.
So take the time to download and save things and don't assume the cloud will always be there.
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Comments
Really, if you want guarantees, you should print things out on archival approved paper and store it in a temperature/humidity controlled dark place.
Coincidentally, I'm currently doing reading about preservation and disaster planning for archives.
Increasingly, the Cloud is becoming "the replacement".
Tim has some actual valid discussion points, if you can look past the whole Tim thing.
I don't know if this counts as "cloud computing" but while I use Dropbox and other online services I prefer my own services hosted from my own system like FTP and Web Servers to Media Streaming. Products like Qloud for watching movies on the go and Splashtop for remote access with audio support are great and hope to see more like them as well as more development.
... I've been reading the Ender's Game series, but I'll see myself out.
I have one system at home with a ~14TB in RAID arrays that holds all the things that can't be backed up online (due to size) or would generally be a PITA to do offsite backups. It has minimal cabling, so in the event of a GTFO emergency I can grab that if time permits.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34732870@N07/6498200349/
It's good to know that something like this has at least crossed one person's mind out there (too bad many others don't think this way more often).
World of Warcraft and TF2 - REQUIRE internet access to play.
Starcraft 2 - online multiplayer requires internet, but at least I can play the campaign or A.I. without internet access.
And of course, everything else on the internet that I do, watch, and download.
We are already too dependent on the internet. Online anything, ATM cards, electronic banking (a convenient but BAD idea right from the start), iPhones, streaming this, cloud based storage that, etc. Some day it will all come crashing down. Maybe not anytime soon, but it could always start to happen 63 seconds from now, and the hardware / servers / power supply can't last forever on their own.
All my own video files are backed up in multiple non-cloud locations, of course, but for anyone else to see my videos they need the internet. For the first couple years of my website and webshow, I offered a set of the high bit rate episodes on CDs / DVDs for little more than the cost of burning them. No one ever wanted a set.
Let's not forget the EMP threat. I can't see how that would permanently disable everything, (shouldn't a system restart fix it after the EMP surge fades away?) but the articles I read about it didn't sound good.
As usual, you disparage the use of advances in tech while employing them constantly. You can live entirely without some of those things, but its gonna be a rather annoying way to live (perhaps that suits the wisher). No requests for "Tim's Chocolate Pain"? Hmmm
EMP ruins most electrical equipment completely, as in "complete overhaul or refitting in order to function again" and that assumes you even have access to non-ruined equipment, designs, materials, manufacturing capacity, etc.
Digital information is VERY fragile, which is why there are tons of businesses out there who specialize in long term archival storage that have backups upon backups upon backups with people in charge of making sure that formats are changed when they are obsolete, that someone is monitoring security and many (if not all) of these places have disaster planning as well.
Granted, there's still lots of additional work needed, but that's because technology changes so quickly it's hard to stay on top of which format should be the best, how can we back it all up in the most cost efficient yet secure way, etc.
Blah blah blah.
The point of cloud computing isn't to see how safe you can hoard your things. It's about enabling you to build and share faster and faster, with less overhead. I can spin up the infrastructure for an entire company in 20 clicks that would've cost tens of thousands of dollars in startup capital five years ago. That's insane.
I'm doing things with Icrontic that would've blown our collective minds in 2003 because of things like cloud servers and services like GitHub. And things like Icrontic aren't hoarded bits, they're how we're living our lives.
That's cloud computing.