As with anything it all depends on context. In the context of developers/IT people and platforms, your description is a reasonable one for the term cloud computing. In the consumer context, the term has a different meaning in it's most common use. In that context, the term is used to refer to any service where the majority of the application's execution and storage happens on centralized servers which completely abstract any operational concerns from the user. Examples would include gmail, dropbox, google docs, etherpad, github, and squarespace.
All of these services allow technically competent but not necessarily sophisticated users to setup, configure, scale, and use systems which previously they would have had to have hired an IT administrator to setup and manage. They don't need to worry about dealing with outages, running out of resources, or keeping track of backups. This is enormously powerful and valuable for a very large section of users. Finally as a bit of a bonus, there are a number of collaboration type features which become much easier to implement when users are all working on a common system. If the privacy concerns are too great of a risk for you and you are willing to spend the time and money to operate your own systems that's absolutely your business and your right. Understand however that for many other people, the ability to fill out a form and not have email infrastructure be a problem for their company anymore is incredibly valuable. A side note on the privacy concern/trust issue: think about the incentives for Google or any other large "cloud computing" company. They basically make more money in the logn term by increasing the number of people who use their services. Anything they do to significantly violate a user's trust decreases the number of people who will use their service over the long term. At the end of the day, they may do stupid things (e.g. expose your address book via buzz) but they have very strong incentives to correct those mistakes quickly and to learn from them. When evaluating a service you need to look at more than just what *could* they do and think about what makes sense for them to do. Look at the consequences for them if they do something "evil". ____________________________ Sean O'Connor http://seanoc.com On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 10:55 PM, Chris Knadle <[email protected]>wrote: > On Monday 01 March 2010 21:54:51 Matthias Johnson wrote: > > On Mar 1, 2010, at 9:14 PM, Mark Wallace > > > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I see. the problem is that I just experienced over 60 hours with no > > > internet access. Wouldn't that make it impossible to do much of > > > anything with my computer? > > > > Ok so this is probably the biggest back and forth on lug I have seen > > to date and it has morphed slightly off the original email but to me > > this is the most damning thing about cloud computing. If we were in an > > always connected world it might work but we are not. Also the fact > > that open wifi is slowly becoming illegal these days the filtered > > options for public wifi will probably be less than desirable. Cloud > > computing is definately something not needed IMO. It also brings up > > the issues of fair use and such. Which laws apply? Where the server > > resides or the user? > > > > Matthias Johnson > > I'll throw this in, as it might answer some of your questions concerning > "cloud computing" such as... "Whaaat is it?!?" [Cat from Red Dwarf...] > > I recently went to an IEEE meeting about cloud computing (Nov 2009 I > think?). > As far as I could tell the term "cloud computing" mostly means "an > automated > method for a user to request and for a system to provision a virtual > machine, > with the specified resources". In other words, you visit a web page to > order > a virtual box, you choose what kind of setup you want from a list of > predefined configurations (one of which hopefully fits most of what you > need), > you click "go", and in a couple of minutes you've got a remote box > available > to you that you can ssh to, where you can modify the setup from there. > > Sounded like from there you can automate spawning virtual machines with > duplicate configurations if you need to scale some network application. > As far as I could tell, it's mostly geared towards businesses that can use > that kind of automation in order to handle a network load that varies. > It's > not an end-all be-all solution -- it's essentially a niche market. > > For an individual, there isn't much need for this kind of system unless > that > person is running a business like Craig's List, Paypal, etc -- something > that > needs to be able to scale. Whether "cloud computing" could host services > like > these more cheaply than doing it "in-house" isn't clear. If it isn't, then > "cloud computing" is essentially a solution in search of a problem. > > > -- Chris > > -- > > Chris Knadle > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org > http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug > > Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium > Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration > Apr 7 - Nagios > May 5 - Android >
_______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration Apr 7 - Nagios May 5 - Android
