Topic: Cloud Computing

I've heard the term for some time now and have picked up bits and pieces here and there but really had no idea what the hell it was all about. And it seems even those you thought would know were a bit confused... so I don't feel terribly bad.

Finally an answer.
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/02/cloud-computing-defined-by-ber.html

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?Privatize the Profits - Socialize the Losses.? Randi Rhodes

NoJive...I came across this term sometime early last year from an article in the Economist....and my initial take was that it seems like we might be making a full circle and returning back to Centralized processing?

Wat ya think

~Sig coming soon~

I have some mixed feelings about this issue...
As I see it: in a nutshell cloud computing is a generalized load-balancing solution.
This is something that we absolutely need. And for those applications that really need it there aren't any better solutions. Rather than replacing it with something else I think 'we' should focus on fixing the issues and rethink which applications are actually suitable for it and which of them should use specialized/optimized load-balancing solutions instead.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill

(Edited by Arthurio on 02-16-2009 10:37)

There are a lot of problems with "Cloud Computing" One is security. I am still not 100% about the security of such an idea. As it is right now, I do use Google Docs to some degree, but I would never put anything up that might have something that might be classified as sensitive data. I've also used DropBox, but haven't really found a need for it (not really sure you can call that Cloud Computing though).

The other is, if I loose my internet connection then my docs are gone. At least for the time that the internet is down. If a business were to go this route, then there has to be a backup plan. I can see if the servers go down where the apps are hosted, then the business pretty much is done. This can lead to some law suites for loss of business.

But, I think we are a ways off from this becoming the norm IMHO.

I also like how the author describes the paper:

quote:

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Author said :

the paper succinctly brings together Software as a Service

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Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 02-16-2009 14:20)

CPrompt: you are describing the problems with cloud computing you are describing the problems with a web application that is managed by a company that you don't trust. Also cloud computing as a concept can't be held responsible for you not having a backup/restore plan.

This is what I was trying to say: We should rethink whether cloud computing is appropriate for things such as office applications. I don't think it is since I think things like google docs are transferring load to the wrong place. Also I don't think it's a good idea that no local repository of documents is kept and the central repository can't be backed up by the user.

I don't think the value of the concept of cloud computing can be evaluated based on bad and inappropriate uses of it.

(Edited by Arthurio on 02-16-2009 15:08)