CLOUD Computing ~ the future?

3563 Views 66 Replies 19 Participants Last post by prophet, Oct 31, 2008

negawsklov

Discussion Starter · Oct 28, 2008

so there's been a few things in the media lately about 'cloud computing' as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and IBM all invest heavily in this concept . . .

For anyone who's not heard of it, very simply it means that rather than keep your personal data on your computer hard drive, you would store everything at a central 'data centre', thereby allowing you to access everything no matter where you are or what machine you are using

In many ways we're already heading down this path by uploading our videos to youtube or our documents & pics to ISP safe data storage such as BT's Digital Vault

But will it really take off?

Personally it worries me . . . keeping all your eggs in one basket for a start and relying on a large company to look after my data does not fill me with confidence

there are also the obvious worries about these data centres being a target for terrorism, the data being 'used' by those it is entrusted to and basically a loss of independence.

So if it worries me . . . does it worry you? would you use it? would you trust it? will it really take off?

I'm interested to see if I'm alone with my tin foil hat :lol:

1 - 20 of 67 Posts

Brian Burrows

· #2 · Oct 28, 2008

It worries me too

Carbon

· #3 · Oct 28, 2008

And until people stop worrying about it then it will never take off for any important data - who knows though, people's attitudes may change in the future

prophet

· #4 · Oct 28, 2008

I'm already using some of the cloud services for some things, Google Mail, Apps and AppEngine, Amazon EC2 and S3, as well as various more geeky ones for demand scaling of infrastructure etc and I find it works very well...

... on the proviso you trust your provider, but I already trust Amazon with my credit card number to buy books, so why not services? I already trust Google with (some of) my email, why not some documents too?

negawsklov

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 28, 2008

Brian Burrows said:
It worries me too

glad I'm not alone! :lol:

Carbon said:
And until people stop worrying about it then it will never take off for any important data - who knows though, people's attitudes may change in the future

but will they EVER stop worrying? Does it not worry you?

prophet said:
I'm already using some of the cloud services for some things, Google Mail, Apps and AppEngine, Amazon EC2 and S3, as well as various more geeky ones for demand scaling of infrastructure etc and I find it works very well...

... on the proviso you trust your provider, but I already trust Amazon with my credit card number to buy books, so why not services? I already trust Google with (some of) my email, why not some documents too?

I guess you're right . . . we already do trust these organisations with our data. I'm still not sure I want to trust all my data with them though, just makes me uneasy

you think it's inevitable Chris?

Storm84

· #6 · Oct 28, 2008

I like the idea of it - as people have said, plenty of people trust in YouTube or whatever, but I have one or two issues. I don't like the idea of it all being in the same place, as if something goes wrong you can't do anything about it and there's no way of knowing how many people it will affect.

I quite like the idea of being able to choose how much space I have available on my hard drive, the service providers will not give you that choice, unless you wish to pay extra. And who's to say that they'll not put clauses into their terms and conditions whereby anything hosted on their servers belongs to them?

negawsklov

Discussion Starter · #7 · Oct 28, 2008

Mister_Storm said:
I like the idea of it - as people have said, plenty of people trust in YouTube or whatever, but I have one or two issues. I don't like the idea of it all being in the same place, as if something goes wrong you can't do anything about it and there's no way of knowing how many people it will affect.

I quite like the idea of being able to choose how much space I have available on my hard drive, the service providers will not give you that choice, unless you wish to pay extra. And who's to say that they'll not put clauses into their terms and conditions whereby anything hosted on their servers belongs to them?

I agree there . . . they already put 'I agree' terms & conditions boxes on software and internet service accounts which lets be honest, hardly anyone ever reads. And if you don't tick the box, what then? . . . you can't use the software/service :lol:

I worry that this cloud service, if it takes off, would eventually become so difficult to work outside of, removing all option and I don't like the idea of not having a choice!

Carbon

· #8 · Oct 28, 2008

negawsklov said:
but will they EVER stop worrying? Does it not worry you?

Storing some things in a cloud doesn't worry me - other bits do.

I think businesses would be the hard ones to win over (our customers certainly would be) and that is where the money is not the home user

prophet

· #9 · Oct 28, 2008

Inevitable is a strong word but I can definitely see a big push towards cloud based services in the coming months, it seems to be the next big buzzword...

Carbon is absolutely right though, it doesn't matter if you and I like it or not, business (and more specifically Enterprise) dictates succes or failure in this world. That said our customers, even the bigger ones whom you typically see as negative towards these things, seem quite positive towards them. We're using Google Docs with partners for document collaboration for example.

Fundamentally for me I don't have an office to put a server in, I like my data to be always available and I know how to use AES encryption for anything sensitive, Amazon S3 gives me as much quick and easy storage as I need for a good price with terms that I can live with.

Carbon

· #10 · Oct 28, 2008

I'm betting it will take ages before any customer with a regulatory authority interested in the security of their data won't be using it any time soon though

Technohippy

· #11 · Oct 28, 2008

about ten years ago I was doing hidden call and response on web pages using a hidden frame and javascript to refresh the frame and update the parent window with content... some years later it got called "AJAX" became a buzzword and now "The Web 2.0" is apparently the future using this "new" technology ...

Been storing files on server space I can access anywhere for just about as long... it was only a matter of time before it got a buzzword and became "the new thing". My "cloud" has been running at home on my broadband connection for years behind a firewall with VPN access.

New technology is wonderful... I wonder what new buzzword they'll come up with for web-based software next? :incheek:

clarkson

· #12 · Oct 28, 2008

I'm into this concept, I already keep all my bookmarks and photos online. But I keep backups offline too, surely it will always be sensible to so.

Tyzer

· #13 · Oct 28, 2008

Valves game distribution program Steam will start using a Cloud system to save users game saves soon, their reasoning is that you can use and download games to multiple computers but what is the point of doing that if you need to start a new game every time.

I'm interested but storing confidental files or important files worries me.

negawsklov

Discussion Starter · #14 · Oct 28, 2008

Technohippy said:
about ten years ago I was doing hidden call and response on web pages using a hidden frame and javascript to refresh the frame and update the parent window with content... some years later it got called "AJAX" became a buzzword and now "The Web 2.0" is apparently the future using this "new" technology ...

Been storing files on server space I can access anywhere for just about as long... it was only a matter of time before it got a buzzword and became "the new thing". My "cloud" has been running at home on my broadband connection for years behind a firewall with VPN access.

New technology is wonderful... I wonder what new buzzword they'll come up with for web-based software next? :incheek:

buzzword yes but you can't deny that the 'big players' like MS are now investing heavily in infrastructure . . . a new concept no, a new level of the use of this concept . . . it appears so

spiny

· #15 · Oct 28, 2008

Tyzer said:
I'm interested but storing confidental files or important files worries me.

what worries you ? privacy ? encrypt them before 'uploading'

if you're worried about access, I'd bet money that an online storage service has better hardware than your pc

Tyzer

· #16 · Oct 28, 2008

spiny said:
what worries you ? privacy ? encrypt them before 'uploading'
if you're worried about access, I'd bet money that an online storage service has better hardware than your pc

Incase the storage centres are targeted by terrrorists? Hell even a powercut would bugger us :lol: Ok it's very unlikely but they need solutions to anything that could potentially happen.

spiny

· #17 · Oct 28, 2008

Tyzer said:
Incase the storage centres are targeted by terrrorists? Hell even a powercut would bugger us :lol: Ok it's very unlikely but they need solutions to anything that could potentially happen.

and what are the chances of that happening AND your hard drive going pop at the same time ?

I'd say quite low

even if the online storage explodes, you'll still have a copy on your drive

Pyro

· #18 · Oct 28, 2008

I'll start using it when the government do.

negawsklov

Discussion Starter · #19 · Oct 28, 2008

Pyro said:
I'll start using it when the government do.

:lol: for once I laughed

Technohippy

· #20 · Oct 28, 2008

negawsklov said:
buzzword yes but you can't deny that the 'big players' like MS are now investing heavily in infrastructure . . . a new concept no, a new level of the use of this concept . . . it appears so

Well yes MS ultimately want you to have your (their) operating sytem on their cloud for obvious reasons... as do the big players like Adobe that make software for said proprietary system.

Single point of failure anybody? :lol:

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