Monday, February 21. 2011Cloud Cuckoo Land ComputingJohn Linton For several years now I have been reading about how "Cloud Computing" will revolutionise the world's industries. Over the past two years we have sent people to US conferences to get a better understanding of "Cloud Computing" and we have bought some servers and put in place budgets to establish a basis for trialling whatever we can find that passes for a "Cloud Computing" application. I read this article earlier this morning: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576067461795827534.html enticed by its 'tell all summary' head line but all I found were vague generalisations and unsubstantiated future claims......disappointing for a reputable writer in a reputable publication. To say that email is an example of "Cloud Computing" because the server is in a different location to the client is just plain stupefying in its inanity. I have asked everyone I have met (inside and outside the industry) who has raised the topic to explain what "Cloud Computing" is but, either because of my stupidity or their lack of ability to explain their thoughts/ideas, I have never found anyone who is able to describe anything other than using the internet to access applications and databases located in other locations which I, and the rest of the world, have been doing since at least 1995........at least as I understand what is being said. As far as I can see MRPG users, Social Networking users, Exetel employees in Sri Lanka and in their homes around Australia all use "Cloud Computing" in that their client software accesses remote computer hardware, software and data bases to provide entertainment, personal relationships or their livelihoods and has been in place for a very long time - there is nothing new and certainly nothing revolutionary about such concepts - they/their precursors have been around and being crudely delivered since the late 1960s. Am I really so dumb that I cannot even begin to comprehend what I have read so widely about and had so many discussions about for so long? Or is "Cloud Computing" some latter day Andersoneque commercial con a la "The Emperor's New Clothes"? When a not too junior executive of the world's largest computer company is quoted in the referenced article: ""Cloud computing represents a paradigm shift in how IT infrastructure and software are delivered and consumed," says Christian Klezl, vice president and cloud leader, for International Business Machines Corp. in Northeast Europe" you would think that if a company as large as IBM has a dedicated group under a VP to progress it's interests in "Cloud Computing" it is real. But note the nonsensical nature and sheer nothingness of the statement itself (with its tell tale clue to its vapid nature by the inclusion of the give away words "paradigm shift" - always a certain sign that the speaker can't explain what he/she is saying). I may be being unfair in taking the single statement as all the person concerned had to say about the subject he was devoted to at this moment but "goodness me, Betsy, he sure sounds like one of them Eastern snake oil salesmen to me."...if that was culled from his reply as being the best quote. I have read many of the explanations that typing "cloud computing" in to Google produces but I am none the wiser. I have read many dozens (what an archaic word in a decimal world) of white papers and competently authored articles but am still none the wiser. So, I would be very grateful to anyone who can point me to a source that defines exactly what "Cloud Computing" is and explains why it is of benefit to which sorts of users. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
The IT pendulum continues to swing from Centralised to Decentralised and back again, ensuring we are eternally kept in gainful employment.
Comment (1)
All cloud computing seems to mean is that you have little idea of where your data are and who is processing them, and for what purposes.
I will leave any bank that uses "cloud computing". Comment (1)
You may want to start hiding your money under your mattress. All the big banks in OZ are doing something with cloud computing.
As far as I've been involved with some of them, they all use (are in the process of setting up) "private cloud" computing platforms. Two of the big banks I've worked for, do have private clouds at the moment for dev/test environments and are in the process of building production private clouds (Infrastructure as a Service & Security as as Service). Comment (1)
Cloud computing is an overloaded term. In the early days is was about storing data in places that the client could not identify with a computer. It probably started with mail providers like yahoo and hotmail and has extended to remote backup locations, photo storage and probably even large online storage.
Now, it also applies to remote computing systems that are available to run your code - including a fully virtualised computer. (Like Amazon EC2 and various other services.) So like the data situation, you can't identify the machine which is running your virtualised computer. In essence you buy computer time in a way that is completely partitioned from anyone else using the same system - where system is 1000's of computers. The current offerings are very useful in a number of situations. For those businesses that don't want to worry about maintaining hardware or availability, cloud computing is an option. For someone wanting to run an internet service with high bandwidth without setting up their own location, cloud computing is an option. It is also useful for access to temporary large scale computing. Wikipedia is pretty good at describing what it is and what it isn't. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing For a commercial offering, see http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ Comments (4)
Cloud computing needs internet access to be pervasive and constantly available to take over in my opinion.
To me it means ultimately that I have my home PC desktop available to me where ever I am on any device I use. For business, to me, it means them not owning servers or hardware just paying for big data pipes to access all their needed services from third party vendors such as Google and Microsoft. Finally, I can't see how Exetel can compete in this area except in their core area of broadband access. Comment (1)
I'm not sure what IC mean's by "have my home PC desktop available to me" but it doesn't quite sound right in cloud computing terms.
In a pure cloud computing scenario, your "home PC" is simply an internet access device, just like any other you may use. No real storage, lightweight OS, with a few apps for internet access. The software and data that you would find on a "home PC" now would instead be in the cloud. That could look roughly the same (with a virtual machine running in the cloud) or with various cloud applications like google docs etc. Comments (4)
It used to be called "thin client" and "ASP" and "distributed hosting" and........
Comments (4)
Ok, think of it as generic "thin client" and "distributed hosting". Rather than being domain specific though, it is generic. Also it is internet rather than local or wide area.
I think the biggest distinction is that for a user, the cloud turns some computer resources (hardware and data storage) from a good (computer & disks) to a service (cpu seconds and Mbytes) - not only for business, but everyday users. (And note it isn't cpu seconds of a particular computer, or Mbytes of a particular disk.) I personally think cloud computing is a paradigm shift and many people haven't made that jump in fully understanding it yet. Rather than understand the new paradigm, they grab onto old ones. Yes it has its roots in things like "thin client" and "distributed hosting" but it is a major step forward. Comments (4)
...but can you quantify why you say that?
Comments (4)
Hmm, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "quantify". Is that why I think it is a paradigm shift? I think I could but not comprehensively in comments on a blog! I'll give one very simple example and one comment.
An "old" way of reading email is to download it to your local machine (pop3 for example) to a dedicated email client. Every different machine you use to access email has to be configured - and carefully if you want every message to go to every machine you might use. A small evolution was found in IMAP - where the data remains on the server. Still, an email client is required and every machine you use needs to be configured. The cloud way for email uses web browsers (not built specifically for email) to access a server that provides "Webmail". You only configure the remote "webmail" service and not each client on your machines. Just like your email client, you have folders and calendars, except all of that is running on a server which (to be strictly a "cloud" service) you can't identify. You can use whatever machine you like to access your "Webmail" provided it has a browser and internet connection. So in this case you get cpu seconds for running the "Webmail" server and data storing your "webmail" configuration, mail, calendars etc. Still it is a rather simplistic idea of "cloud computing". The "paradigm shift" is where your data and application reside - only a group of remote computers that you can't identify. To access my data, it doesn't matter what hardware I have in my hands, under a 100% cloud computing system, provided I have internet access, I also have access to all my data and applications. Actually, I don't need my own hardware. I can borrow someone else's! The "cloud" part is that I don't know where my data and those applications reside - other than they are in some server farms probably on the other side of the world. In my mind, not knowing where my data, applications and computing is occurring is a paradigm shift. As a side comment, it ought to be very attractive to non-power users. If something "crashes" with your home "PC" - no matter what you need to do to fix it (replace it, re-install the OS etc), nothing is lost and you have access just as before. No backups necessary must be a big selling point! The problem is that for the common person, cloud computing is immature and there is no one place in the cloud to do everything people want to do. Comments (4)
IMO CC is just a fancy name for something that lots of us have been doing for many years as a matter of course, and is designed to relieve the "sheep" of their hard-earned, in the name of the next big thing.
Just like all these new fangled multimedia boxes that Telstra et al are nowadays offering to customers, to enable live streaming of internet content such as YouTube and online TV to their big screen TVs. Hell, I've been doing that using nothing less than my Exetel ADSL service and a cable from my Computer to my TV, for the last 6~7 years, and for no additional cost. Just like the Y2K bug, the consumer sheep are being convinced that this is something they all need to have, and many people are making truckloads of money off the back of it. And in the end, most folks will one day wake up and realise that they really didn't need it at all. Maybe it's a case of the dumb deserving what they get. Is there anyone who thinks that a netbook is a viable alternative to a desktop with apps installed? Is there anyone who really thinks that an ipad (while being very convenient for those on the go) is a viable alternative to a desktop with apps installed? People need to wake up. I could go on, but it just gets boring. Comment (1)
Its just a bundle of existing tech which has evolved into a buzz word, I'd say mainly due to the recent jumps in phone/mobile tech??
IMO its just basically just an evolution of utility computing Depending on the user its either - developers, sysadmin & techies: its an imitation OSI model for systems/hosting. Trying to split off the hardware/lower levels and automate as much as possible while providing APIs. - for the end user, its just apps built using the above OR something which appears so (being in a self managing environment). Splitting the services up in such a way can be of great benefit but like most things in tech it all depends what you want to achieve. For Exetel where's the benefit? - Providing the fully automated backend is overkill & most of the benefits could be achieved with a vmware solution. - Providing CC style services isn't your core business and is a whole new can of worms - Using CC services could be useful depending on the app but then you have difficulty with integration & have less guarantees on your data safety. Do you really want to trust that marketing pitch about "awesome backups" when you can't actually verifiy anything. As mobile devices evolve, CC will grow with it. Eventually it'll just be a marketing term for a web service. Comment (1)
I think Scott Adams summed it up best:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-01-07/ Comment (1)
My understanding is that cloud computing is simply the outsourcing of computer capacity ( whether disk storage, memory or CPU cycles) and generally billing based on prepaid amounts or a usage based pricing model.
Much like an ISP proving mail services or a web host providing web hosting space, the underlying infrastructure is of no consequence and the end 'service' is abstracted from the customer. Comment (1)
As Joel said above, Cloud Computing is the outsourcing of computer capacity.
The reason to consider cloud computing as a paradigm shift is that it allows any company to buy computers and storage which are: - Highly reliable - Backup up - Provided with good bandwidth to the Internet Without needing to have any expertise in server hardware configuration or network management. The 'granularity' in which you buy these services is very small, in time and power, and provisioning time is zero. This means that the barriers to entry for a company which has a web application they want to sell are lowered -- no capital expenditure, no contracts, no lead time -- just your application appearing on the web with as much grunt as it needs, when it needs it. Cloud computing can be more than just buying a virtual machine by the hour -- Amazon and Google also sell scalable 'NoSQL' datastores which allow applications more scalable access to data. Comments (2)
I'll add that I don't see Cloud Computing as being immediately relevant to Exetel -- providing cloud computing services is capital intensive and must rely on large scale to be profitable. Exetel as a consumer probably doesn't make sense -- you have to have physical facilities to house your specialised equipment, so hosting the general purpose servers you need there makes sense, and you already have the expertise, as again you need it for essential aspects of your business.
Comments (2)
It isn't a service that would be sensible for Exetel to offer to any company above 'small'.
I think that it will depend on how it's viewed by possible buyers over the next period of time. Doubtless the pricing will be too high for Australian companies and that will be a problem here. I will be interested in seeing the early pricing models. Comments (4)
|
Calendar
QuicksearchArchivesCategoriesBlog AdministrationExternal PHP Application |