What are the implications of "Cloud Computing"?

[MrKnobs]

It IS return to mainframe / dumb terminal. If you lose your internet connection, your chromebook (or whatever) is as useful as a rock. It's like whatever bad sci fi movie where all the alien drones / aircraft / cyberbots / whatever fall to the ground useless when the brave soldier blows up / introduces a virus / switches off the mother ship / controller / alien brain.

 

Reason: Solution to software theft, never let the user have a copy of the application at all. Charge by the use, no pirating. HUGE monetary benefit to application developers, game over for pirates and privacy and having hard backup media.

 

Method: Gradually stop releasing non-cloud version / updates of apps. Wait for non-cloud computers / apps to become obsolete, fail, be trashed. Market, market, market, "cloud" is wonderful!

 

Resistance: Just say no. Remember quadraphonic sound? Do not want, did not buy, no longer exists.

 

Distributed computing = freedom / democracy / redundancy / privacy

 

Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation

 

Resist!

 

Terry D.

[Coaster]

 

It IS return to mainframe / dumb terminal. If you lose your internet connection, your chromebook (or whatever) is as useful as a rock. It's like whatever bad sci fi movie where all the alien drones / aircraft / cyberbots / whatever fall to the ground useless when the brave soldier blows up / introduces a virus / switches off the mother ship / controller / alien brain. Reason: Solution to software theft, never let the user have a copy of the application at all. Charge by the use, no pirating. HUGE monetary benefit to application developers, game over for pirates and privacy and having hard backup media. Method: Gradually stop releasing non-cloud version / updates of apps. Wait for non-cloud computers / apps to become obsolete, fail, be trashed. Market, market, market, "cloud" is wonderful! Resistance: Just say no. Remember quadraphonic sound? Do not want, did not buy, no longer exists. Distributed computing = freedom / democracy / redundancy / privacy Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation Resist! Terry D.

 

 

careful, the zombie sheeple will accuse you of wearing tinfoil hats - just like they are trained to.

[Hard Truth]

 

Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation Resist! Terry D.

 

 

I'm not unwilling to use cloud computing when and where it makes sense. For example it would be nice to be able to pay a small fee to rent a particular specialized DAW plug-in for a limited time if I don't need to use it routinely. But they will take my hard drives, discs and solid state memory devices from me when they pry them from my dead, cold hands.

[blue2blue]

 

I use it for collaborations with guys I work with on various projects. But it's really at their insistence. I don't care for stuff I create being held on someone else's server. It just makes me uneasy. I guess even with email attachments that's the case, though. So maybe I'm being irrational.

I can certainly understand that if it's work in progress or scratch efforts. But, you know, unless one has an already established career, I really think most folks are 'safe' -- the real struggle is to get anyone to hear your music -- not to keep them from stealing it.

 

I've been telling folks that since the mid '80s when I first got involved in the business 'on the other side of the glass' professionally (engineer/producer) and, as the trickle of self-produced music became a flood and then a deluge, it just seems -- to me -- increasingly obvious that if one wants one's music to ever be heard, he's gonna have to get it out there. No one's ever gonna pay for it if they don't know it exists.

[blue2blue]

A solar flare, a natural phenomenon, isn't The Great Electromagnetic Pulse, a man made weapon of mass electronic destruction. A solar flare is just RF noise. It can disrupt communication but it rarely destroys solid state electronic equipment. It's not much different than the radiated noise from the cell phone in your pocket getting into your microphone when step up to the podium to give a speech, just with greater coverage. I remember when the threat of EMP as a weapon first came around, the Russians were thought to be relatively secure because their communications equipment was still nearly entirely vacuum tube based and there was nothing to get "zapped." The US, on the other hand, was considerably more vulnerable. But then, in those days, we didn't have data stored "in the cloud," though the "mainframe" computer in some anonymous downtown building was where a lot of corporate data was stored and processed, and there was concern of loss in the event of an EMP attack.

I was, of course, being playful. Of course, I heard the same scuttlebut about EMP weapons and the purported imperviousness of the updated vacuum tube valve tech the Russians were still using in the 70s and 80s -- but it also seems to me that I subsequently heard that that wasn't really solid info. I'd be curious about that, though -- never really read anything I'd consider solid/definitive info on the subject. Just tech-jabber...

[UstadKhanAli]

careful, the zombie sheeple will accuse you of wearing tinfoil hats - just like they are trained to.

 

No, they'll converse with him. You see, he makes sense, gives reasons, and can follow a conversation.

 

By the way, I love how if someone either doesn't understand what you're saying or it doesn't make sense to them, they're automatically "zombie sheepie". I never realized how much fun you are, Coaster.

[blue2blue]

 

i'm making perfect sense if you can pay attention: there will be no offline storage when the cloud goes into full effect. period. you wont be able to buy it, use it, own it, whatever. my extreme obvious analogy is the abandoning of VHS (something you could record and save to) to its replacement, the DVR (which you have no access to the content in order to remove it without breaking or cracking the contents). this particular phase out/phase in was slow enough that almost no one caught it but alas, i dont know anyone who uses VCR's anymore. it'll be slow, but in the end you will have a dumb terminal with zero storage possibility and pay through the nose for an inferior service. if you think you have a choice, why then i envy the world you live in because most of our choices are but a fleeting illusion. orwell said "freedom is slavery". coaster says "choice is an illusion" tried watching your old CRT TV lately? all i get is static on mine. do i have a choice? did anyone have a choice? here's a real obvious one that no one seems to notice: tried watching youtube on a non intel mac? try it. go on, try it. you can do it if you downgrade flash to an old version that you download off of a developer site. nothing wrong with those machines so what gives? my G5 is lightspeed faster than my P4 and yet the G5 wont play youtube vids anywhere near as well as the P4. why i ask? it certainly did last year. what changed and why did they change it? did they say they were going to change it? did i have a choice or any say in the matter?

Hate to break it to you, bro, but you can still buy new VHS recorders -- oh, sure, they're often combined with DVD recorders and such, but they're out there. Here: http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=vhs&searchbtn.x=0&searchbtn.y=0

 

Now, of course, someday, there will be so little demand that it will simply be economically unfeasible to manufacture them. Anyone with the slightest grasp of economy of scale in hardware manufacturing shouldn't have to have that explained to them. You can't buy spare parts for Stanley Steamers anymore, either.

 

The same applies to software development. It's expensive supporting legacy technologies -- just ask your pals at Apple -- who are legendarily remorseless about not supporting their recently abandoned platforms. Why should Adobe go to the expense of continued support old Apple hardware when Apple can't be bothered?

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I'm not unwilling to use cloud computing when and where it makes sense. For example it would be nice to be able to pay a small fee to rent a particular specialized DAW plug-in for a limited time if I don't need to use it routinely. But they will take my hard drives, discs and solid state memory devices from me when they pry them from my dead, cold hands.

 

 

Yup. You can clearly see where both are useful for different people and purposes. I'm not necessarily opposed to cloud computing or storage, but you can be damn sure that I'd keep HDs, disks, and solid state stuff for all the truly important stuff.

[blue2blue]

By the way, it doesn't look like anyone has mentioned it, but does it strike anyone else as vaguely amusing that Apple's iCloud service isn't actually a cloud service? It's not even actually cloud storage.

 

It's a push-sync technology.

 

However, that is not necessarily a bad thing, at all, particularly given the bandwidth restrictions on many contemporary mobile (and even home) service packages.

 

If you, say, store media in the cloud for frequent playback, you increase your bandwidth consumption. However, if you used a push-sync system -- as clunky and old-fashioned as that may seem at first blush -- depending on your usage pattern and purpose, you will likely save bandwidth, since you're only consuming it when you send new content up to your iCloud account and it then pushes it out to your account's linked devices.

 

Later, when today's bandwidth restrictions begin to ease, Apple (if they're on their game and they often are) can change the unseen background technology substantially while keeping user experience fairly similar (but freeing up local storage requirements).

[blue2blue]

It IS return to mainframe / dumb terminal. If you lose your internet connection, your chromebook (or whatever) is as useful as a rock. It's like whatever bad sci fi movie where all the alien drones / aircraft / cyberbots / whatever fall to the ground useless when the brave soldier blows up / introduces a virus / switches off the mother ship / controller / alien brain. Reason: Solution to software theft, never let the user have a copy of the application at all. Charge by the use, no pirating. HUGE monetary benefit to application developers, game over for pirates and privacy and having hard backup media. Method: Gradually stop releasing non-cloud version / updates of apps. Wait for non-cloud computers / apps to become obsolete, fail, be trashed. Market, market, market, "cloud" is wonderful! Resistance: Just say no. Remember quadraphonic sound? Do not want, did not buy, no longer exists. Distributed computing = freedom / democracy / redundancy / privacy Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation Resist! Terry D.

 

There is certainly some truth in that.

 

That said, I was pretty skeptical of the whole always on web concept -- which even in the mid-90s suggested we would be moving increasingly to what we'd later call cloud computing (see my doubtlessly boring recap of social network/proto-cloud computing above -- if you've got a couple days to spare ) -- and, in fact, when I got my first broadband connection, I was positive I'd be turning the modem on and off with every use, as I was at least nervous about the whole idea of an always on connection to the web. That reluctance lasted... hmmm... less than four hours, as I recall. (I might have turned it off that first night.) I just made sure I had a hardware firewall in between the modem and my networked machines and proceeded apace. I have not regretted that seemingly imperious incaution.

[blue2blue]

careful, the zombie sheeple will accuse you of wearing tinfoil hats - just like they are trained to.

Me, I'm trained to embrace wary, informed skepticism - but neither wide-eyed gullibility (by a mile) or paranoid intransigence.

 

Your mileage will clearly vary.

 

 

[EDIT: I should hasten to say that that tagline above should not be construed to suggest that you embody either of those extremes -- simply that our positions on that vague and fuzzy spectrum may not be immediately adjacent. ]

[blue2blue]

 

Storage is cheap now, don't need no stinkin' cloud can store my stuff at home.

I'm on that page, too. I only use online storage for access to media I'll need from my lappy or mobile, and sometimes for limited distribution (of media I own the rights to) to others, when, for instance, I want a handful of friends to be able to see something I've done but don't want to put it up on a formal DL site. I've used my own web sites/servers for that for years, of course, but something like Dropbox helps if you need two way sharing and the people you need to share with are not FTP-savvy. In fact, Dropbox really came in handy a week or two ago when a client had several hundred large graphics we needed to update into their catalog database. I gave him the option of one of the few no-sign-up big-file-'send' services I could find or Dropbox (which he wasn't yet on). He apparently looked over Dropbox's info material and decided it was worth the quick sign up. Worked great. He set up a (secure*) shared folder for me and the rest was go.

 

 

*Secure with the proviso that anything that's up there could conceivably hacked into and accessed. But -- I'll tell you -- if one is hooked up to the 'net, it's probably more likely that he may, himself -- if targeted -- be hacked long before a well-designed web service.

[E-money]

Distributed computing = freedom / democracy / redundancy / privacy Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation

 

 

This is incorrect. There is far more redundancy from catastrophic failure with a good cloud solution. The telco company that I work for offers a Cloud Solution that is triple-redundant, 3 separate SAS70 type 2 certified data centers where every application is mirrored at all 3 sites. If a nuclear bomb was dropped on one of these data centers, the applications would be live at one of the 2 backup sites within minutes. Our hosted exchange platform has been up and running with NO DOWNTIME for 3 years. If the hosted exchange platform {censored} the brick, it would be up and running at one of the backup sites in seconds.

It would cost a company a ton of money to have this kind of fail-safes in place with their own infrastructure and staff.

[MrKnobs]

 

.

 

 

No argument there for corporate cloud.

 

Consumer cloud implementation? I suspect it would take a lot less than a nuke to lose MY data. It's gonna be WalMart, not Fort Knox.

 

Terry D.

 

P.S. BTW I worked corporate / uni mainframe sys analyst / programmer for many years. LOTS of stuff got lost even though they assured us just as you did. It's not the nukes that will kill it (we'd have bigger problems then anyway), it's the incompetent backups and data loss that goes undetected, the incomplete migrations, the unnoticed data corruption etc.

[MikeRivers]

 

I'm not unwilling to use cloud computing when and where it makes sense. For example it would be nice to be able to pay a small fee to rent a particular specialized DAW plug-in for a limited time if I don't need to use it routinely.

 

 

Wasn't there a software company, maybe even a DAW maker, who rented rather than sold their software? It wasn't all that long ago, but it didn't last.

 

I just, sort of, tried to use cloud computing this morning. I was looking for a freeware program that wasn't a full blown CAD program that I'd have to really learn just to draw a room layout. All I could find were some on-line room planners. I tried two of them and failed. Lack of documentation, lack of flexibility (how complicated can it be to draw a rectangle and plop it down on the floor?) and the one that I got more than about four pieces in place just stopped working. Plus I had to register and couldn't find how to un-register. I'll probably start getting Better Homes and Gardens now.

 

They have to do better than this in order to convince me that it's a good idea.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

Wasn't there a software company, maybe even a DAW maker, who rented rather than sold their software? It wasn't all that long ago, but it didn't last.

 

 

There are actually dozens of big companies doing this currently. Don't want to shell out $699 for Photoshop? Instead, you can use Adobe's subscription service to use it for a short while. Microsoft is doing similar things with their Office suite. It's going to become as normal an activity as Video On Demand and other services that allow for temporary access to content and services without "owning" it.

[blue2blue]

This is incorrect. There is far more redundancy from catastrophic failure with a good cloud solution. The telco company that I work for offers a Cloud Solution that is triple-redundant, 3 separate SAS70 type 2 certified data centers where every application is mirrored at all 3 sites. If a nuclear bomb was dropped on one of these data centers, the applications would be live at one of the 2 backup sites within minutes. Our hosted exchange platform has been up and running with NO DOWNTIME for 3 years. If the hosted exchange platform {censored} the brick, it would be up and running at one of the backup sites in seconds. It would cost a company a ton of money to have this kind of fail-safes in place with their own infrastructure and staff.

Unlike Amazon and Google, eh?

 

Just sayin'...

 

 

FWIW, my rule of thumb is also that confidence only begins with three layers of redundancy, even at the personal level.

 

Congrats to your outfit on the good performance. (Touch wood! )

[Coaster]

No, they'll converse with him . You see, he makes sense, gives reasons, and can follow a conversation. By the way, I love how if someone either doesn't understand what you're saying or it doesn't make sense to them, they're automatically "zombie sheepie". I never realized how much fun you are, Coaster.

i think you should really examine why you are taking this all so personally; i dont take it personally at all. AFAIK this is your issue, i feel no responsibility towards your feelings.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

i think you should really examine why you are taking this all so personally; i dont take it personally at all. AFAIK this is your issue, i feel no responsibility towards your feelings.

 

 

What, that I think you're fun? You don't make a drop of sense, and that's why I'm glad you're around. No worries, brother!!!

[Lee Flier]

It IS return to mainframe / dumb terminal. If you lose your internet connection, your chromebook (or whatever) is as useful as a rock. It's like whatever bad sci fi movie where all the alien drones / aircraft / cyberbots / whatever fall to the ground useless when the brave soldier blows up / introduces a virus / switches off the mother ship / controller / alien brain. Reason: Solution to software theft, never let the user have a copy of the application at all. Charge by the use, no pirating. HUGE monetary benefit to application developers, game over for pirates and privacy and having hard backup media. Method: Gradually stop releasing non-cloud version / updates of apps. Wait for non-cloud computers / apps to become obsolete, fail, be trashed. Market, market, market, "cloud" is wonderful! Resistance: Just say no. Remember quadraphonic sound? Do not want, did not buy, no longer exists. Distributed computing = freedom / democracy / redundancy / privacy Cloud computing = tyranny / invasion of privacy / central control / catastrophic failures / regimentation Resist! Terry D.

 

LOL... man, you guys are overlooking so many things in this thread that it ain't even funny (and I say this as someone who works for a company that sells 100% cloud based software and services).

 

Cloud computing is going to grow a ton, certainly. And it makes sense for many types of applications. So does remote offsite backup and storage - although I keep hard backups of my personal data locally, that wouldn't help me if my house burned down. So it makes good sense to either keep a hard backup somewhere else (which can be inconvenient and therefore most people won't do it as often as they should) or have a remote offsite backup.

 

But you guys are dreaming if you think that local drives are going to go away just because of the growth of cloud based computing. Even existing cloud apps cache apps and data on a local drive - it'd be unusable if they didn't, because network speed and reliability is never going to equal that of local storage. Caching ensures that the app runs as fast as possible and that your work won't be interrupted if your connection briefly drops (as happens all the time, probably without your knowing it, while you're using web based or mobile apps).

 

And sure, you might lease a DAW workstation now and again if you need a specific version of Pro Tools or whatever for a specific project. But is there ever going to be a cloud based version of Pro Tools with no local disk? Can you imagine the latency and dropouts? And that's just one application of many. Sorry, but the evolution of storage devices is always going to be a step ahead of network speed and bandwidth, and therefore there will always be apps that take advantage of the speed and reliability of local storage, especially as it gets cheaper. And as long as people continue to need local storage (even if, for some people, it's only for caching), it will continue to be manufactured cheaply and used by software developers. You can argue that network speed and reliability are going to improve over time, and of course they will... but local storage is always going to be faster and more reliable.

 

Also, with some specific exceptions, most businesses cannot afford the downtime that comes with network outages, so they will not use 100% cloud based services for critical operations. Microsoft has been trying to sell subscription based software for years now, and nobody's buying. They don't have any confidence that Microsoft's servers are always going to be reliable or secure, and they don't like being locked into Draconian contracts where Microsoft can pull the plug anytime if a customer doesn't like the latest terms of the EULA.

 

Perhaps most importantly, companies like Microsoft do NOT have users over a barrel, and they know it now. Programmers are an ornery bunch who don't like their freedoms to be compromised and have the tools to make sure that doesn't happen. We all know that there is a robust open source software community and that's not going away. You can always have a Linux based computer and run open source software and/or buy software from independent developers who continue to program software for traditional computers and mobile devices. And since local storage WILL continue to exist on those devices (even if just for caching), you don't have to worry about it going away. It won't. Casual users may not need or use it much, but it'll still be there.

 

Meanwhile, cloud based computing is increasing many people's freedoms around the world who can't afford expensive computers or software. Someone in a Third World country could bootstrap their own business using Google's free cloud applications for instance, and collaborate with people all over the world. Yes, one can argue that Google could turn into Big Brother and suddenly start making unreasonable demands and/or charging people for their apps, but that would destroy their business model, and even as we speak, "distributed cloud" applications are being developed and used that could replace Google, Facebook and similar services should this ever happen - by harnessing the collective power of lots of individual computers strung together.

 

So let's not be gettin' our panties in a wad. Cloud computing is great, for many appliations, and we should use it where it makes sense, and not use it where it doesn't, as Jeff said. Some people will be dumb and lose their data or software, but that's their problem and they will learn from it.

[UstadKhanAli]

But one thing about Mr. Knob's post, though...he's at least justifying and explaining why he's opposed to it from his point of view and his sense of mistrust. But you bring up some interesting points.

 

And yeah, there's no way in hell local drives are going away. Seriously.

[144dB]

Lee, you are a breath of fresh air. Well said...

I do think advances in speed/bandwidth are going to influence the local storage equation, but I'm not going to argue with someone who works in the field. You see it everyday.

Todd

[Lee Flier]

 

I do think advances in speed/bandwidth are going to influence the local storage equation,

 

 

Sure, they will. Like I said, there will be advances, and that will cause people to want to use a lot of apps and store a lot of data in the cloud that they wouldn't now. But that only speaks to what gets stored remotely vs. locally, and how much - it doesn't mean local storage devices are going to disappear. And there will always be applications that people will need or want to run locally, for a myriad of different reasons.

[MrKnobs]

So let's not be gettin' our panties in a wad. Cloud computing is great, for many appliations, and we should use it where it makes sense, and not use it where it doesn't, as Jeff said.

 

You're a youngster, Miss. Some of us old timers have been around long enough to see this cycle repeat.

 

Having said that, I pretty much agree with everything you said in your post.

 

Cloud computing = mainframe + smart terminal. I'm a veteran mainframe programmer, and I have a pretty good idea of the advantages / disadvantages of central vs distributed processing.

 

Some people will be dumb

 

Yes, I agree, and those are the people I worry about.

 

What I'm against is the marketing people pushing it on so many people that DON'T understand the tradeoffs using BS in their sales pitch. The microcomputer was a HUGE step forward in democratizing computing and I hope that step is never reversed. I prefer owning the software I pay for, being responsible for my own data storage / archiving / integriy, and making Big Brother at least get a warrant and kick my door down if they want to look through my hard drive.

 

T.

[MikeRivers]

 

What I'm against is the marketing people pushing it on so many people that DON'T understand the tradeoffs using BS in their sales pitch.

 

 

Isn't this a bit like how so many amateur musicians have been convinced that they can record and distribute their music with just a computer? People want to believe this sort of thing, and some actually make some headway. Others just tread water and are no better nor worse off than before the opportunity was available.