Cloud computing

[baja_yu]

After hearing about cloud computing more and more, I started to read up on it. And I have to say, most of what I read was bull. So, wanting to see if other people shared my opinion, I Googled "Cloud computing is bull....", this is one of the results. I agree with most of it.

http://bit.ly/3wHdtw

EDIT: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-10052188-80.html

[FireXtol]

Cloud computing is basically the terminal/thin client concept, in an internet context(WAN), instead of intranet(LAN) or mainframe.

For instance, there's a service which runs games on the server's hardware, and uses TCP/IP to communicate with the end user(audio,video, game controller input, etc). I suppose ideally such a service would have local data centers to handle local traffic, minimizing latency.

SUSE Studio has a Flash-based interactive application where you can control a machine(SUSE's, like Remote Desktop or VNC) running their distribution of Linux configured as you like. All within their web site(and Flash). Then after you configure and test drive(in the Flash 'RAT') the appliance you can download it in various formats(like VM instance, Live CD, or disk image). I was quite surprised at the robustness using this service.

What else have you read?

I don't see how it's just "distributed computing". Which is a term typically used for services such as SETI@Home or Folding@Home/Rosetta@home.

[dilettante]

Cloud computing is basically the terminal/thin client concept, in an internet context(WAN), instead of intranet(LAN) or mainframe.

Not really.

Cloud computing is about hosted service components used as parts of an overall application. You might have a database in the cloud, raw storage, key-value storage, message queues, or raw computer power you dispatch blobs of code to for off-box execution.

It has little or nothing to do with "software as a service" or client/server or thin client or web-based applications. It's about hosted infrastructure.

It's really about moving parts of the inside of your application into the cloud, not moving your server into the cloud. The usual justification is metered scalability. Instead of buying more/bigger servers you offload service workloads into the cloud where you pay by use instead of a one-time fee for server hardware plus software licenses and maintenance. You can scale up and pay more when demand is high, scale back and save money when demand is lower.


However it became quite a bandwagon where everyone down to Joe's LAMP Web Hosting wanted to market his wares as cloud computing - when they ain't.


We did this to death maybe 6 to 9 months ago in General Computing.

[FireXtol]

That sounds like cloud storage, with an emphasis on infrastructure, and not so much cloud computing as a whole. Cloud computing encompasses the infrastructure, storage, platforms, and application(and typically clients!); which together form the service on the servers. Not just the storage or infrastructure components.

I meant respective to a perspective of a user. A cloud service can be no different than anything else. Google, Amazon, and others are all cloud-based services(web sites, popularly). These are not merely components, they are entirely cloud based.

From a customer's(of a cloud host) perspective, it's most basically compared to a utility service. Where it's a pay as you go/pay what you use model. Never much having to worry about hitting a ceiling(if done properly). Just worry about your bill if you get a DDoS.

But if you want to get technical, I'm sure there are books on the subject. Programmers who don't read frighten me.

[JuggaloBrotha]

After hearing about cloud computing more and more, I started to read up on it. And I have to say, most of what I read was bull. So, wanting to see if other people shared my opinion, I Googled "Cloud computing is bull....", this is one of the results. I agree with most of it.

http://tiny.cc/aeyiu

Since this is in chit-chat... I tried cloud computing, but all my code kept evaporating

[Pradeep1210]

After hearing about cloud computing more and more, I started to read up on it. And I have to say, most of what I read was bull. So, wanting to see if other people shared my opinion, I Googled "Cloud computing is bull....", this is one of the results. I agree with most of it.

http://tiny.cc/aeyiu

The link points to a page that says:
"Sorry, we weren't able to locate that URL. Please double check your link details and try again. Or check back later. "

Pls. post correct link.

[baja_yu]

Edited the original post. Thanks for reporting, seems that the shortened url on tiny expires after time.

[moonman239]

I don't use cloud computing (at least not the cloud computing that others use). When I want to view my files on all my computers, I just e-mail them to one of those white, puffy things that are up in the sky. Then when I want to recall those files, I call that same sky object and ask it to send me a copy.

[Hack]

The link points to a page that says:
"Sorry, we weren't able to locate that URL.

That is because it went into the clouds.

[abhijit]

Cloud Computing is an overused term.

In a nutshell, you can use someone else's hardware / software resources without being bothered to upgrade or maintain the ones in house. Examples are: SalesForce.com (application) / dropBox.com (storage) / SQL Azure (database).

[techgnome]

Hack - I looked into your evaporation problem there... found a lot of smoke. The mirrors seemed to be missing however.

denis - it's more than that... there's also a fair amount of virtualization that goes on, allowing an organization to expand on demand w/o having to maintain the hardware itself... plus then when demand drops back down, instances can be closed off. This means you can easily expand the web farm when you need to and then reduce its size later w/o having a bunch of servers sitting around acting like doorstops.

Cloud computing has been around in one form or another for some time (can you say web services?) ... how ever, it's simply been taken to the next level. Remember when Web 2.0 was the rage? It wasn't anything new. It was simply the packaging of tried and true technologies, given some lipstick and held up as new. But it was the same old pig. Same here... the "revolution" is in the hosting. Rather than a company hosting their own data and webservices, they can off load it to a mega data center. They sign up for an account, load up their stuff, set some configuration, and the hardware is someone else's problem. Need more capacity? Easy! Since it's all virualized, you spin up a new server instance (AppFabric or Azure) configure the database/services to replicate... bam! Done. Demand dropping off? Spin down a viturualization or two and save youreself some money. And THAT's where the power of the Cloud Computing comes from. Not that it really is anything new, but how it's being implemented. Somewhere around here is another thread where I go into a little more detail on the matter and how it works, along with an example (a real-life one at that).

-tg

[techgnome]

Here's a link to the other thread where the cloud got a discussion.
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=634947

-tg

[tr333]

Cloud computing from a PHB point of view:

http://dilbert.com/fast/2011-01-07/

[techgnome]

Sadly... from the PHB view... that's accurate.

-tg

[Hack]

What is sad about it?

[Nightwalker83]

Isn't cloud computing the way of the future? Looking at what is happening now we host our apps online rather than on our local machine. We even do the same with the source code and other files associated with our programs.

[honeybee]

Imagine if you can run your favourite OS off a tablet and access online apps (such as Google Docs) to manage your office work. Whether the term cloud computing has been overused, or whether it includes/excludes hardware, infrastructure or other things, the future surely looks much more mobile with cloud computing in the air.

Downside is you will never be able to rest.

.

[Nightwalker83]

Downside is you will never be able to rest.
.

Society is already like that! 24/7 almost everywhere nowdays.

[techgnome]

The new Google OS laptop/netbooks work that way. It runs in a Chrome browser shell.
It's an interesting concept... and one that I could see appealing to a certain segment of the IT world... but not developers.
http://gizmodo.com/5710532/an-hour-w...chrome-netbook

-tg

[Nightwalker83]

I wonder how much the os will eventually cost?

[honeybee]

The new Google OS laptop/netbooks work that way. It runs in a Chrome browser shell.
It's an interesting concept... and one that I could see appealing to a certain segment of the IT world... but not developers.
http://gizmodo.com/5710532/an-hour-w...chrome-netbook

-tg

Well, you could just own a tablet PC (or handheld/mobile depending on your preference) and as long as you are on the internet, you can carry all your documents with you, create/edit them on the move. So you have your office with you.

As for developers, what if you could write code, test it and debug it remotely? Suppose the Visual Studio IDE is converted into an online application where you can open your project, edit, run, debug and then deploy? It wouldn't be too difficult, would it?

For an organization to be on the move, it would then have to invest in good central infrastructure, such as data centres and servers. That would be all required for an 'office'. Everyone else would then be mobile.

.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

As for developers, what if you could write code, test it and debug it remotely? Suppose the Visual Studio IDE is converted into an online application where you can open your project, edit, run, debug and then deploy? It wouldn't be too difficult, would it?

I just dont see what benefit you get ? i can already access my work computer from home if i want, and i have no interest in accessing it anywhere else. What benefits would i get from it being in the cloud ?

Also i suspect (with current broadband speeds) it would drastically slow down the program, especially if the projects themselves are stored in the cloud.

For an organization to be on the move, it would then have to invest in good central infrastructure, such as data centres and servers. That would be all required for an 'office'. Everyone else would then be mobile.

Again what is the benefit of this ? at my work, anyone can work from home remotely already, and if they had a laptop with mobile broadband then they could work from where ever they wanted.

[techgnome]

Stop thinking about how to use the cloud from a developer-user role and just as a business user role. Think about it from your end user role.

I wonder how much the os will eventually cost?

Nothing because you can't but the OS standalone... at least not in its current state... If you read the article I linked to, you'll find out that the hardware has been customized too... no Caps Lock, and the Function Keys are re-purposed... They not only broke the mold with the OS, but with the hardware too. That alone may end up being the deciding factor on whether it gets any traction or not. Are portable computing device manufacturers really going to want to run two lines of production?

Well, you could just own a tablet PC (or handheld/mobile depending on your preference) and as long as you are on the internet, you can carry all your documents with you, create/edit them on the move. So you have your office with you.

Until the tablet crashes and no longer boots up and you can't access the documents on the hard drive. I know... I know there are tools out there that most sys admins have in their toolkit to do drive retores and data extractions... but again... think of Billy Bob at home who now has to shell out some $$$ to GeekSquad just to get the data restored. Now he's going to have to buy new hardware. Would be nice if all he had to do was just buy the new hardware and all his docs are instantly "restored."

As for developers, what if you could write code, test it and debug it remotely? Suppose the Visual Studio IDE is converted into an online application where you can open your project, edit, run, debug and then deploy? It wouldn't be too difficult, would it?

An interesting thought. VS2010 already runs using WPF for the interface. I actually think that idea might have some merit. There's a few technical things to work out, like where would the compiler actually run, on the server, or on the client? Advantage: I could do development from anywhere, home, the airport, the office, the beach. Wouldn't have to worry about VPN or having VS installed. And I'd imagine that patches/SP would be automatically applied. From a business stand point, it would be an advantage that I wouldn't need to maintain the install files on my servers for when I get a new employee. Just create a new account, assign it to them, and bam! Done. And if it's got TFS linked to it, even better.

I just dont see what benefit you get ? i can already access my work computer from home if i want, and i have no interest in accessing it anywhere else. What benefits would i get from it being in the cloud ?

I have a tendency to turn off my machine when I go home for the day. That prevents me from being able to log into my work machine. Ok... so I could take my work machine (which is a laptop) home with me and VPN in... true, but now I need to lug the laptop back and forth between home and work. Bleh, I'd rather not have to do that. Or... given how the laptop has been behaving lately, [deity of your choosing] forbid that it crashed irrevocably and I have to turn it in. Now I'm the team anchor. I also point you to my previous comments regarding new employees.

Again what is the benefit of this ? at my work, anyone can work from home remotely already, and if they had a laptop with mobile broadband then they could work from where ever they wanted.

You've never stayed at a hotel that didn't have WiFi, but has a "Business Center" have you? I have. Let me tell you, it's a royal PITA. All development would need to be done locally... but then how do you get it back to the rest of the team? It's late in the afternoon, and the bits need to be delivered to the client today. I've seen this happen first hand... and it usually ends up in email somehow and that's just a disaster waiting to happen (which it did, and delivery was missed resulting in a penalty). Now put the IDE into the cloud, login from any web browser... check out the code, make changes, upload and check in the code. Instantly the rest of the team has the code, someone extracts it locally, or better yet, TFS automated build takes over and the code is compiled, the release is done and is delivered to the client.

In your scenario NSA, it requires the company to maintain an array of servers. For a large company, that may be acceptable, but let's consider the one or two-person development shops. How many times have we seen the "Help! My machine crashed and I need to get my source code back. ... No we don't use Source Safe. What is Source Safe?" threads?

I'm not trying to sugar coat it, but it's one aspect of the cloud that I could see as a viable business offering. I wouldn't replace VS completely with a virtual VS... and as I mentioned there's some technical aspects that need to be worked out (in addition to where VS would run, what about the memory space of the app when you run it, and how would debugging work?) But given the richness Silverlight has recently offered us, a virtual cloud-based IDE may not so totally far off the mark.

It certainly opens a word of possibilities.

-tg

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Stop thinking about how to use the cloud from a developer-user role and just as a business user role. Think about it from your end user role.

My answers where more specifically in response to honeybee's post and he seemed to be talking about specifically the developer-user role.

We are starting to use the cloud at my work now and i understand it's advantages particularly to those who do not want to invest in there own infrastructure. An increasing number of our smaller customers are already moving to hosted solutions.

You've never stayed at a hotel that didn't have WiFi, but has a "Business Center" have you?

You right i haven't. But that scenario has got to be the exception rather then the norm.

Also what about the speed issue of having the development environment in the cloud ? If this slowed down my everyday work then it would be a problem, for me anyway.

In your scenario NSA, it requires the company to maintain an array of servers. For a large company, that may be acceptable, but let's consider the one or two-person development shops. How many times have we seen the "Help! My machine crashed and I need to get my source code back. ... No we don't use Source Safe. What is Source Safe?" threads?

I'm not trying to sugar coat it, but it's one aspect of the cloud that I could see as a viable business offering.

Now Source Safe in the cloud, that is something that could be very useful. If i could check out files from the cloud but be working on them as local files, this would cut out any possible speed issues.

[MarMan]

Back before the web and when almost no one even knew anyone who had a computer they were doing this with mainframes. A company would buy a mainframe and sell time on it to other companies (time sharing) who could not or would not buy one. One part of the OS was even named Time Sharing Option (MVS TSO). (They even had mainframe windows [ISPF]).

Then as PCs became more powerful (and more user friendly) they started to take over the jobs the mainframes were doing. Now the cloud is just the next step in the computer evolution.

[techgnome]

My answers where more specifically in response to honeybee's post and he seemed to be talking about specifically the developer-user role.

My comment was aimed at everyone in this this thread in general... not specifically you. Every one seemed to have this "what's in it for me" attitude... I wanted to make sure the record is set straight that it's not about "us" (collectively as developers) but about out users, our clients, our reason for having a job.

But that scenario has got to be the exception rather then the norm.

You'd be surprised... I work for a company that works with non-profits... many are not exactly rolling in the dough... when we travel, it's not like they can afford to put us up in the Ritz Carlton. This also goes back to my previous comment... we're venturing into a new segment, where the clients don't have a whole lot... so for them, we offer a cloud type of solution. We host it. We maintain the hardware and the application. If they ever get to the point where they want to take it in house, we'll help them move it.

Also what about the speed issue of having the development environment in the cloud ? If this slowed down my everyday work then it would be a problem, for me anyway.

I did say there were certain technological aspects that needed to be worked out. That's one of them. As is the natural latency factor that comes with running over the wire. I didn't say it was perfect... but an interesting idea I wouldn't mind seeing pursued. As it is, it would be an improvement for me, every time my machine crashes (avg 4-5 times a day) I lose 15 minutes at least. so any speed issues there might be, I'd be willing to have that over the crashes and the data loss. At least this way if my machine crashes, my virtual environment would remain intact.

sourceSafe is already "cloud"-like... it's on the server. SVN is the same way... so that functionality to store your files "out there" and work on them locally already exists. The scenario I was pointing out was (again) for the small shops that don't have the $$$ to buy a server to use for version controlling and use a shared folder or some "talking stick" method to "check out" files. It's way too common.

I think it's got potential... for the right people,for the right reason. I have my own issues when it comes to the cloud - I'm a control freak and I'm not too keen on my DB being stored "out there" by some one I don't really know or fully trust. And yes, there are times when I need to work locally, disconnected from the rest of the world (like at 30,000 ft).

There are pros and cons to the whole thing. It's clearly not a one-size-fits-all.

-tg

[NeedSomeAnswers]

My comment was aimed at everyone in this this thread in general... not specifically you. Every one seemed to have this "what's in it for me" attitude... I wanted to make sure the record is set straight that it's not about "us" (collectively as developers) but about out users, our clients, our reason for having a job.

Fair enough, i agree that particularly for smaller client who do not want or cant invest in infrastructure, the cloud is certainly something that could solve this problem.

You'd be surprised... I work for a company that works with non-profits... many are not exactly rolling in the dough... when we travel

That is a fair point, when i was travelling around with work i was working for a law firm, and we got put up in the same hotels as the partners, which were generally £120+ a night establishments (in London) so they were pretty nice.

As it is, it would be an improvement for me, every time my machine crashes (avg 4-5 times a day) I lose 15 minutes at least. so any speed issues there might be, I'd be willing to have that over the crashes and the data loss. At least this way if my machine crashes, my virtual environment would remain intact.

Your machine crashes 4 -5 times a day ????!!!**!! what the.... Really ? My work PC hasn't crashed in the 2 1/2 years since i got it, what is causing yours to crash so much ?

sourceSafe is already "cloud"-like... it's on the server. SVN is the same way... so that functionality to store your files "out there" and work on them locally already exists. The scenario I was pointing out was (again) for the small shops that don't have the $$$ to buy a server to use for version controlling and use a shared folder or some "talking stick" method to "check out" files. It's way too common.

I was more thinking of someone offering a hosted version of SourceSafe, where you would pay for some space on there SourceSafe server, this could then be suitable for smaller dev shops, and would stop you having to have the whole dev environment in the cloud.

I think it's got potential... for the right people,for the right reason. I have my own issues when it comes to the cloud - I'm a control freak and I'm not too keen on my DB being stored "out there" by some one I don't really know or fully trust. And yes, there are times when I need to work locally, disconnected from the rest of the world (like at 30,000 ft).

Our smaller client really like the idea of not having to purchase there own hardware, and we have been winning a lot of hosted business lately, so i agree for the right people in the right situation there is a market for it.

[techgnome]

Regarding Source Safe... ok, point taken... so now let's go ahead and take it a step further... I want my 1-2 man shop to have the full power of VS (more than just the express version) but I don't quite have the resources to purchase MSDN or Multiple copies of VS... might be nice to pony up for a rather less expensive subscription to VirtuaStudio.... then I could purchase the full version of VS later. Or... I land a 6-month job where I need VS... rather than going out and getting it myself, I sign up and only pay for the months that I actually use it. (carp! now you've got me thinking like marketing... stop it!)

Anywho.. regarding the crashes... it may have something to so with the app running (and it is a rather larger app) along with web server (the components/modules are all implemented as web services, for dev machines, it's all local) and SQL Server (times two) and Reporting Server... VS2008, Outlook, IE, Firefox, Adobe, and various other utility bits... all on 2G RAM... for some reason the hardware folks have it in their head that we only need 2G ... and we only get upgraded to 4 after the fact, and only if we complain about it... That reminds me, I really should put in a ticket for that.

-tg

[honeybee]

My comment about carrying your office with you was actually meant to imply that you would be storing all your office files in the cloud and have access to them 24x7 from your tablet using internet.

SourceForge and similar sites already host the source code repositories, right?

One big difference with having local files vs hosting files on the cloud is the IT security. Companies may not want their employees to carry confidential source code or documents with them. So instead of buying laptops, they can only buy netbooks which have a bare minimum storage, enough to boot the device. Anything else gets done in the cloud. You can't store the files locally. Much easier to control and safeguard. This will weigh much more than device crashes.

.

[toecutter]

Hi,

I am new to cloud computing and a little confused, which on is best suited for gaming?

cirriform (mainly detached and wispy), cumuliform or convective (mostly detached and heaped, rolled or rippled), and stratiform (mainly continuous layers in sheets)

[techgnome]

It depends... normally the client side would be cirriform... and the server cumuliformed.... but considering the power that's needed for gaming, I'd say the client would have to be a little heavier, which I think would lean more towards stratiform... that way layers can be swapped out as needed. The server would still need to be cumuliform.

-tg

(took me a while, but I got the reference - nice)

[honeybee]

Just read up on the BBC yesterday about companies allowing employees to bring their own devices to work, laptops or handhelds. Reason? Companies can't afford to upgrade their hardware to the latest, while employees often flaunt more powerful and feature-rich devices than what they get at work.

If you decided to adopt a cloud-based model, all you would need would be the cloud. Employees could use their own PCs, laptops and mobiles to work, from anywhere. You aren't restricted by geography, timezones or costs. Plus in a fully cloud-based environment, all your work remains on the servers.

.