Doctorow On What Cloud Computing Is Really For 348
Diabolus Advocatus alerts us to an article Cory Doctorow has up on guardian.co.uk, addressing what cloud computing really means for the average consumer: "The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going to be when everything moves to 'the cloud' — that is, when all your important storage, processing and other needs are handled by vast, professionally managed data-centers. Here's something you won't see mentioned, though: the main attraction of the cloud to investors and entrepreneurs is the idea of making money from you, on a recurring, perpetual basis, for something you currently get for a flat rate or for free without having to give up the money or privacy that cloud companies hope to leverage into fortunes."
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:5, Informative)
It's the latest take on thin-client to server connectivity. Why buy a $1500 computer when you can get 100x more power from a $100 thin client and $20 a month. (or what ever)
The main difference this time is a web browser typically becomes your thin client and the server is actually a massively parallel cluster of servers. Every time you use Google you are using the cloud.
Ars Technica Already noted and responeded ... (Score:5, Informative)
Ars Technica has a very nice response to this: http://arst.ch/722 [arst.ch]
TCO != 0 for traditional data centers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What are they talking about? (Score:3, Informative)
Well you get a flat rate for that disk and CPU sitting next to your desk that will be worth nothing in 3 years.
Or you can spend $15-20 a month and get a constantly refreshed and updated/upgraded system every time you turn it on.
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:5, Informative)
"The Cloud" isn't just about hosting data. Its about hosting everything, your data, your applications, your medical records, who you communicate with, what you say, when you say it, where you say it, what you spend money on, what you do with it, what color underwear you are wearing, everything.
Google mail, google docs, myspace, facebook, amazon ec2 (a service that allows you define an OS image that can be dynamically deployed on any number of VMs or even physical systems, its actually quite useful if you need a highly variable number of servers running at any given time) are all examples of cloud computing.
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:5, Informative)
I'm assuming it is essentially paying a data center to host my data from my home system? Why in the hell would I even WANT to do that?
Because then it's trivially simple for you (more importantly, for people who aren't at all technologically inclined) to get at it from anywhere.
Re:evil corporations (Score:5, Informative)
how dare they try to provide a service for people to use and actually charge for it. Perhaps the government should provide 'Universal Cloud Service' to everyone for free. (except of course for the taxes they are charged for it to hide the actual cost)
They are welcome to provide these services if they want to, this is just an article to explain to those who will listen why cloud computing is pushed so hard. It is a warning to not become dependant on "the cloud" because you and I probably don't know what it'll become, but it is likely that investors are flocking to "the cloud" in the hopes that they can grab control of anything, and then profit from that control. That probably isn't good for the users of the cloud.
I have pretty much stopped using proprietary software since I noticed how inevitably my interests will conflict with the interests of the proprietary software maker. I will look for open stuff first, and only if there isn't an alternative will I use proprietary stuff, like Google Earth and some games.
Cloud computing is just proprietary computing by another name. It can still be useful, but the control lies with the cloud owner rather than the user.
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:4, Informative)
I've seen "Cloud Computing" around as a buzzword but I never really cared to investigate what it really was.
I'm assuming it is essentially paying a data center to host my data from my home system? Why in the hell would I even WANT to do that?
Or did I completely miss the bus? Something I missed?
You're probably already doing it. Do you use Gmail or do you have a single server somewhere? Ever use Google Docs for collaborative authoring of documents? Ever use an online backup service (that probably uses Amazon S3 in the background)? Ever use one of the iPhone apps that broke when S3 went down a year or so ago?
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:3, Informative)
The cloud is actually an ambiguous term that describes the use of computing resources that are not directly controlled by the user.
Many current resources we use are cloud based, but only recently has the term been thrown about so freely. G-mail, google docs, and the internet are all cloud based systems that you might know. Although your stuff may end up hosted in datacenter, it might be hosted by several companies and several datacenters that you will never interact with. These are customer based cloud systems, but businesses are getting involved with the idea now. Really it seems to me that for a business it is outsourcing. For a consumer it is more of a feature as it is nowhere near economical to run your own servers to provide the same services. The idea of 'the cloud' is merely a term for what has been going on for ages: using computing resources that others control but you have access to.
The new application of 'the cloud' for consumers is to move ALL of your stuff online so you are just a dumb terminal that can display the 'clouds' services.
The new application of 'the cloud' for business is outsourcing large chunks of the IT department to companies that specialize in IT. This is supposed to cut costs.
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:4, Informative)
Well "cloud computing" is a bit of a buzzword, but the idea is having big distributed computing available as a service on the Internet. I believe the term comes from Visio diagrams where the Internet is depicted as a mysterious cloud, as if to say "And something happens here, we'll call that the internet." It's sort of like the "step 3: ????" that comes right before "step 4: Profit!" Something happens, we're not sure what, but it gets the job done. Let's call that the cloud.
Why this is helpful is you get services that scale very easily and cleanly, and often you only pay for what you use. Amazon's S3 is a good example. With a dedicated host with so-many gigbytes of storage, you pay for that storage whether you use it or not because it represents actual hard drive space that your hosting service has provisioned for you to use. If you run out of space, you'll have to go through some upgrade process. With Amazon S3, you pay for the number of gigabytes you use. If you're starting your business and you only need 50 GB of online space right now, you can do that. If you need to scale up to 5 TB, no need to really change anything Amazon will keep giving you storage and you'll pay for whatever you use.
Now the reason you might want to use this for your own home data is pretty simple: so it'd be accessible wherever you are. Sure, you could set up a home server, but that means you have to run a server at home. You have to know how to set that up and secure it, and keep it running. You have to worry about losing power, or what happens when your house catches fire, and whatever else.
Now maybe it appeals to you and maybe it doesn't, but certainly it has its uses. From TFA:
That's how I use Amazon's S3 cloud storage: not as an unreliable and slow hard drive, but as a store for encrypted backups of my critical files, which are written to S3 using the JungleDisk tool. This is cheaper and better than anything I could do for myself by way of offsite secure backup, but I'm not going to be working off S3 any time soon.
Re:The cloudy facts. (Score:3, Informative)
Cloud computing is useless for the average user. Who in their right mind would wants to store everything important to them on an advanced cluster for a monthly fee?
You're assuming that a typical user doesn't have their home computer stuffed full of spy-ware, that they know how to backup everything that matters to them and that they only ever want to access their files from a single location and from a single device. Faceless-mega corporation 'in the cloud' is likely to be much better at managing that data than a typical home user. Even if privacy suffers a bit, at least it will do so in defined and publicised ways [amazon.com] (compare and contrast with the problems of techs at the local repair shop rummaging through your data [pcpro.co.uk]).
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:3, Informative)
I fix my computers. My friends' computers. My parents' computers. My friends' parents' computers. I'm so sick of it even though I love computers. I don't love updating and patching and cleaning and defragmenting. I love writing software. So give me an operating system with vim, svn and firefox. Give all my computer troubled friends and relatives an operating system with just firefox. And watch how we can *finally* start taking advantage of technology instead of the other way around.
Re:Cloud relies (Score:4, Informative)
How long does slashdot take to load where you live?
Irrelevant. Bandwidth does not equal data cap. You could burn up your monthly allowance in an hour.
Doctorow is late to this party (Score:3, Informative)
Cory is only repeating what I've been saying for years now: the "cloud" is merely the latest spin on trying to "re-educate" people to accept software subscriptions in place of one-time software licenses. There has been an ongoing effort for many years to rebrand software as "content", for much of which people have already become accustomed to paying a monthly fee. If Big Software succeeds in convincing people that software is content, then this battle is lost and we'll all wind up paying for software by the month, cloud or no cloud.
I've said it here repeatedly, blogged about it in my little backwater blog, with nary a modding-up in sight, but now Doctorow parrots the same allegation after all this time and suddenly it's news? I guess I should derive satisfaction from the fact that finally people might take notice of the unintentional conspiracy at work here.
Re:I'm not sure I understand (Score:4, Informative)
You're stuck in VDI. Cloud means nothing more than a virtual network; other definitions are perversions by marketing sorts.
If I can rent an app like Salesforce and do my thing, it's a lot simpler than rolling my own. If I can get a rack of servers to render stuff, then go away, then I'm happy. It's all cloud, and means nothing more. Doctorow once again vents his paranoia that the centrists are taking over. Instead, it's a lot looser than that.
Sure, Google and Microsoft and dozens of others with SaaS apps would love you to http or ssh or whatever into their systems and rent their stuff. But that's as it should be. Nothing new here. Tell him to take his Seroquel and move on.
Re:Cloud relies (Score:5, Informative)
>>>What does the cost of bandwidth have to do with anything? It doesn't get any cheaper whether you run it with a $1500 PC or a $100 thin client
>>>
Here's the math spanning a range from 1998 (when I got my first IBM PC) to 2010 when I'll probably upgrade to a new MS Office: $400 Win98 PC (this is what I spent) + $400 for newer XP-PC + $100 for Microsoft Office 97 used until the end of 2010 + $0 for online since you don't need online to write a letter or do a spreadsheet == $70/year over 13 years
- $100 thin client bought in 98 (aka "terminal" in 70s technology) + $100 thin client with newer P4-CPU + $100 thin client with newer DualCore CPU (required upgrade else you get blocked, as was the case when I tried Microsoft's online services) + $50 rent for online office software + $10 "you exceeded your download qoota" monthly overage fees == $193/year over 13 years
I prefer to stick with my current plan.
Re:...on a constant connection (Score:3, Informative)
>>>it's not computing in the cloud as much as rental of desktop applications.
Shush. You are bringing "negative energy" to our cloud computing cult. We don't want logic here.