Someone want to give me the straight dope on cloud computing?

[DanBlather]

@Chronos

Whenever I hear about cloud computing, it always sounds to me like a throwback to the days of mainframes and dumb terminals. Which we ditched as soon as technology made it possible.

Yeah, that web stuff never took off.

[DanBlather]

@antonio107

See, I still use client e-mail. I know a lot of people that do. Especially when I’m in a low internet area (i.e., out in rural quebec, tethered to my blackberry), it’s nice to prep up 5-10 e-mails, and then turn on the internet and fire them all out in one swift blow. Now, if the entire continent becomes saturated with 5G/free-wi fi courtesy of Skynet (I kid) and the internet is omnipresent, then sure, that becomes more a nuisance than anything else.

HTML 5 has support for off-line web pages. There is no real reason you can’t have web-based email that will work off-line. Client vs server has been a pendulum swing since IBM introduced their 3270 terminals, and maybe even before that. In the long term, I think local computers will just have a cache of data in the cloud.

[Derleth]

@DanBlather

Yeah, that web stuff never took off.

That web stuff looked a lot like 3270 block-mode terminals until AJAX took off and browsers could suddenly talk to the server in units smaller than a full form.

AJAX allows web applications to look enough like local ones that it makes sense for Google to offer email and an office suite online and, of course, once the application is on a server it only makes sense for the data to be on the same server. Given how rarely people will back up their data when left to themselves, and how commonly hard drives fail, letting someone else manage your data is very attractive. Businesses have traditionally (since oh, say, the late 1960s) in-sourced this by hiring a few IT geeks and setting up a machine room but that gets harder to justify when someone says they’ll do it all for you and leave you to your real business.

That kind of ‘cloud’ is governed by the same kind of contractual relationships your HVAC stuff is, and it makes all the sense in the world. The other kind of ‘cloud’, which involves people trusting whoever has a flashy website to store their photo album for ever and ever with no contracts at all, does not make sense. People lose shit that way and, legally speaking, they can go eat out a dead skunk for all anyone else cares.

Geocities was a ‘cloud’ of the second type and it’s gone now. Maybe your favorite data silo is next.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Wordy

The thing that REALLY bothers me about cloud computing is that all my sensitive data would be in some servers some where in the world and the hard drive isn’t encrypted. I’m pretty good with my own computer security and encrypt my whole hard drive so that even if someone has physical access to it, they can’t look and see what’s there. With cloud computing, all you need is a curious employee or a big brother government to look at everything you have. It’s a big security issue.

I am not a fan of the concept either, but one of the ways that this concern is supposed to be allayed (in the case of Google) is that your data is not stored on a single server. Cold comfort, but something.

[Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party]

@Hari_Seldon

Although I see no advantage to me of cloud computing and disadvantages (who owns my stuff anyway?), there is one kind I find quite convenient–and so far free: Dropbox. I regularly use three computers (my home laptop, my office desktop, and my travel netbook. Once I put a file into the dropbox directory, it is automatically available on the same directory in all my other computers. Since basically, the only files I store there are my mathematical papers (want copies? Just ask) I don’t care about security. And if Dropbox goes under (or wants to start charging), then I will have to go back to USB sticks to sync my own files. Meantime, it is quite convenient.

We use SVN for the same reason. I’ve never used Dropbox, but does it merge files and help resolve conflicts? If you’re doing collaborative editing, these features are a Godsend!

[Racer1]

I think the industry is looking towards serving data and applications to handheld devices like iPads and the equivalent, and also towards media centres like TV systems connected to the Internet.

There are people who believe that many home computers will be replaced by handhelds and all-encompassing TV/computer hybrids in the not too distant future. The idea is that you’d watch TV, browse the Internet, play games and type your documents from a big media system at home, and a handheld on the move. The cloud part comes in when you want to access the same stuff on any device (home, handheld, friend’s house, replacement device after a fault, etc).

[Gary_Robson]

There are a lot of advantages to the cloud computing concept, but there are several things keeping me away from it:

1. I want to be able to work on my stuff offline. When I’m traveling, I may not want to pony up $20 to have an Internet connection at the airport for an hour, for example. Today, the applications I use reside on my computer(s) and they’re available whenever I want them–Internet connection or not.

2. I want to choose when I load the latest update of one of my applications. I don’t want to pull up a critical document on a tight deadline only to discover that they updated the app last night and something doesn’t work right, or (heaven forfend) they’ve changed the UI and I have to take the time to re-learn things.

@Crown_Prince_of_Irony

Ellison has a well-known rivalry with Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, pretty much the leading enterprise cloud-computing provider.

Is there anyone Ellison doesn’t have a well-known rivalry with?