Need your help: Cloud computing

Thrax

Soon I will be writing an article on what normal, every day end-users think about cloud computing. Big IT is talking this up as a savior, but companies like MS and el Goog are pushing it down on users too.

How do you define cloud computing?
Do you trust it?
Will you use it?
What cloud services would you love to have?
Is there anything you're waiting for to jump onboard?

Please comment to help shape a new article for Icrontic. Your contributions will be very helpful.

Snarkasm

Generally speaking, I have the same aversion to cloud computing as I always have - something that relies on a network connection or on somebody else's servers leaves me feeling at the whim of other forces (nature, power outages, comm line cuts), and that's not something I really want when dealing with my computer. I realize that many other things are exactly like this (electricity, phones, whatever), but for some reason, not being able to access my apps and some of that information is a little more blah to me.

Plus, if we all go to the cloud, we'll only need thin clients, and then where will all our overclocking and 3DMark score comparisons go? That's no fun.

kryyst

I pretty much mirror those thoughts. I'm not a huge fan of spending my very real money for your virtual product. It's the same reason I'm not a big fan of the whole Xbox/Wii app stores. I use them because it is a necessary evil. However I don't like it. I don't like spending money on something that I never truly own or can transfer around freely.

Worse so with the cloud computing concept my ownership is never even really implied at all. They are free to do what they want with their service and cancel my contract at anytime.

MiracleManS

There seem to be positives and negatives to anything. I know that cloud computing is really just the next step in the line of Thin Client ideas that have been purported to be the "next big thing" for the past 8 years. Juniata College did it for a while and Prag can tell you more about the setup, since he designed the app servers.

That said, there are certainly some positives and its not really a far stretch from what we're already doing. We're never going to move away from personal computers and storing information locally, so long as people aren't comfortable with having their information on someone else's stuff. I can see it going a long way in the business environment, especially between two or more companies sharing work load and services.

Thrax

Let's talk about you, the user, for a moment. Forget companies and their prefab services. Would you even want to store stuff online? Do you trust it?

kryyst

I trust online storage as a medium. The question for me is do I trust the provider and ultimately I don't when it comes to a long term solution. I mean I use gmail/docs/cal etc... a lot. But I still don't trust in it as my primary storage. I have all my mails downloaded locally I upload docs to google for collaborative/portability but I don't see it as the primary point for anything I do.

From the application stand point. It's just not fast enough with our current technology.

MiracleManS

Given a reliable company? Hell yes. I'd love to have my stuff available online. Would I want it ONLY online? No, but only having to load my music library, list of documents, etc in ONE place (that is sync'd with my main method of holding stuff?) would be a dream come freakin' true.

Snarkasm

So turn your desktop into a webserver

I've considered it before, and even got it working once, but my hosting company didn't like me very much.

MiracleManS

Just like you said, hosting companies don't like that. Combine that with the fact that there's NO way I'll match the bandwidth/transfer speeds of a large company like Google by doing it from home.

Not only that, but not having to worry about the direct compromise of my own computer's security makes me a happy camper. That's why cloud computing is nice, that and the ability to making public access that much easier.

Snarkasm

Your data on your computer is a tiny target in a big ocean. Your data on Google's computers is a GIGANTIC target in a big ocean.

Just sayin'.

MiracleManS

Which I trust them to be a little bit better with than me. Not to mention a big high five to quantum cryptography.

Edit: Which is also why I said I'd never go entirely web.

RADA

Snarkasm wrote:

Generally speaking, I have the same aversion to cloud computing as I always have - something that relies on a network connection or on somebody else's servers leaves me feeling at the whim of other forces

I agree, as a network professional, I find this rather un-nerving to put all my eggs into one basket when it comes to company data. What happens if there is an earthquake, fire, flood, etc?? Technically, the company could go anywhere and continue running the business. But can I afford to move my entire staff to another location, while Location 1 recovers from said disaster? I see a Cloud structure as being very vialble for a company with a presence in multiple locations, and being less viable to a one location business. From my experience in a Citrix environment, I think I'm more malable to the OS and Applications being "clouded". If somethng were to happen to the Cloud, I could always resort to a traditional network for disaster recovery, on a temporary basis.

A hybrid system where the OS and Applications were in a full Cloud environment, and crucial company data was both onsite, and "somewhere else" would be more appealing to me. Maybe this is due to me growing up in the industry in an ALL on-site network environment.

kryyst wrote:

I trust online storage as a medium. The question for me is do I trust the provider and ultimately I don't when it comes to a long term solution. I mean I use gmail/docs/cal etc... a lot. But I still don't trust in it as my primary storage. I have all my mails downloaded locally I upload docs to google for collaborative/portability but I don't see it as the primary point for anything I do.

Agree again. This is my other big problem with Cloud Computing. We hear daily about sensitive company data being stolen. The thought of all my data being stored on another company's servers rubs me the wrong way. I tend to think that Joe Admin from XYZ Cloud Storage is more likely to sell off my company's vital data, over Bob Admin, who's worked for me for 10 years, and I consider a friend.

BlackHawk

As a user, I have no need for it. If I did need it, I wouldn't trust it for the same reasons Snark gave.

lightnin

Excellent thread. Let's examine google's services.

pros:
Cheap, ad driven.
Your app is load balanced across *data centers*.. availability and DR is a no brainer. If DataCenter1 tips over/burns to the ground all requests are routed to DataCenter2.
No maintenance on my part.
Nice application stack, if i wanted to also host an application in the cloud. Not totally full featured... but it'd be plenty for what I'd do.

cons:
Migrating your apps and data to another platform. That's the most grim looking point of integration IMO.
Little to no network control
Do they own your data? I'm not sure. Could suck.
Possible integration issues with proprietary desktop apps (ie, MS changes the .doc format to something completely incompatible with google's Doc format)

We tried to to give our customers where I work a sort-of 'cloud' solution for webapps. We'd set up VMs, running some flavor of linux with either Ruby, Zend or Django pre installed and ready to rock. The servers were in our data center, in our wan, and could be load balanced by us and cached by our CDN. Some folks loved it. It makes sense if you don't have the staff to maintain that kind of thing. We worked with one group to get their data model exported into a slightly different schema and it really wasn't that painful. They rewrote the app in a different language and are now hosting that app on their own machines. similar idea... it worked out.