Cloud Computing - What's your POV?

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Simpy

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Hey peeps,

Just doing a bit of research, What are your views on Cloud computing/Hosting/Slash/Slash...

Pro's Cons?
What you THINK it is; compared to what it actually is?

Thanx in advance
 
Simpy said:
Hey peeps,

Just doing a bit of research, What are your views on Cloud computing/Hosting/Slash/Slash...

Pro's Cons?
What you THINK it is; compared to what it actually is?

Thanx in advance
Click to expand...
from a TCO perspective there are only pros and no cons.
 
Busy writing some code for the Google Apps Engine atm. Its pretty cool & convenient. All on a hobby level so nothing serious though.

I reckon its risky though for a biz. When they changed the billing for GAE lots of ppl got screwed over with 50x increases on bills. Which kinda blows since the code isn't particularly portable.
 
From a TCO perspective yes, brilliant IMO. Also letting the SP deal with majority of the headaches is also a plus point.

koffiejunkie said:
Too bad that chasing a lower TCO can often cost your business significantly more.
Click to expand...
I think any business today wants a low TCO across the board. But when it comes to DR, having a cloud back up solution seems to be the best way to go. Losing a DB that's run in house (HDD failing,theft,aliens,terrorists) could be a costly exercise. I say let the SP worry about keeping that safe. If they lose it, then there's hell to pay.

Have you guys had much experience with Cloud?
 
Simpy said:
From a TCO perspective yes, brilliant IMO. Also letting the SP deal with majority of the headaches is also a plus point.


I think any business today wants a low TCO across the board. But when it comes to DR, having a cloud back up solution seems to be the best way to go. Losing a DB that's run in house (HDD failing,theft,aliens,terrorists) could be a costly exercise. I say let the SP worry about keeping that safe. If they lose it, then there's hell to pay.

Have you guys had much experience with Cloud?
Click to expand...
100% on all of your points.
cloud is a win win situation from every aspect. I've only on a few occasions had to setup tin vs cloud due to really high demand SQL servers and issues with IS's vmware environment that doesnt support clustering.

those that are reluctant to go cloud are most likely scared of hosting in "the cloud" due to security.... or not having complete control.
 
tnero said:
No cons?

You havent read enough wrt to the TCO argument.
http://bluescripts.net/2012/02/why-the-cloud-isnt-for-your-startup/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/757063/why-would-you-not-want-to-use-cloud-computing
http://blog.serverfault.com/2011/11/17/why-stack-exchange-isn’t-in-the-cloud/
and to wrap up an all round excellent site for research
http://highscalability.com/
Click to expand...

Thanx for the links provided. It might not be a perfect fit for some, but overall I can see more Pro's than Con's if you look at larger Cloud solutions.

A lot of the con's I read in the above mentioned articles are valid but smaller points made out to be massively EPIDEMICALLY huge, which shouldn't be the case.
I understand that for a smaller Startup it might not be 100% viable. But when it comes down to an SME (50-150 employees) who need to run an application(Stock/invoicing/DB) across 6 branches nationwide and require redundancy/fail over with a secure backup solution, Cloud stands out as the number one way to go.

isp-insider said:
cloud hater
Click to expand...

Double LOL - Each to their own.


But seriously, thanx for the feedback guys. Much Appreciated. Please feel free to add more.
 
I actually think the smaller the business the MORE sense it makes.

When you are a big company and require a lot of resources then Cloud computing is often more expensive.

I have looked at SQL Azure because I primarily use the MS stack and the cost of a 400GB SQL database was something like
4000USD a month - though i know they recently dropped their prices.

Also it is pretty damn near impossible to signup with Azure using a SA credit card / billing address - it is a ridiculous blunder.

If you on the MS Stack i would recommend AppHarbor, other wise Heroku (though i think they recently added .net mono)

Yeah it is all great - but the TCO argument is only valid in some points.

Not a cloud hater - just giving you that side of the argument :)
 
tnero said:
I actually think the smaller the business the MORE sense it makes.

When you are a big company and require a lot of resources then Cloud computing is often more expensive.

I have looked at SQL Azure because I primarily use the MS stack and the cost of a 400GB SQL database was something like
4000USD a month - though i know they recently dropped their prices.

Also it is pretty damn near impossible to signup with Azure using a SA credit card / billing address - it is a ridiculous blunder.

If you on the MS Stack i would recommend AppHarbor, other wise Heroku (though i think they recently added .net mono)

Yeah it is all great - but the TCO argument is only valid in some points.

Not a cloud hater - just giving you that side of the argument :)
Click to expand...
teasing :)
 
The cloud is great. Use it whenever I can. I dont use Azure though. Use Google cloud, Amazon cloud and several other clouds, but not Azure. I dont trust windows servers.

One day almost every thing will be in one cloud or another.

Clouds are more stable, more secure and more convenient that 99% of the platforms out there.
 
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I prefer not to use the word cloud. It''s too general and can mean anything from hosting, virtualization ,web services to SaaS.
The word cloud is mostly use by marketing people.

Instead of saying cloud rather call it what it is.
Google App Engine, Azure = PaaS
AWS = IaaS
 
UnUnOctium said:
Cons: You're leaking data for snooping (especially in the US).
Click to expand...

How do you leak data for snooping on a ssl connection? Thats more secure than your lan :D

I promise you thats more likely to happen on a normal network than on a cloud network. More work goes into cloud security than a normal network security (unless you work for Denel or something). There are thousands of weak points on a normal network, this is reduced greatly by using the cloud.

The one real con for cloud networking and thats that you generally need a fast internet connection, other than that it beats normal computing on just about every level.
 
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isp-insider said:
do you have more info to validate your statement?
Click to expand...

ghoti said:
How do you leak data for snooping on a ssl connection? Thats more secure than your lan :D

I promise you thats more likely to happen on a normal network than on a cloud network. More work goes into cloud security than a normal network security (unless you work for Denel or something). There are thousands of weak points on a normal network, this is reduced greatly by using the cloud.

The one real con for cloud networking and thats that you generally need a fast internet connection, other than that it beats normal computing on just about every level.
Click to expand...

I mean from an information theoretic perspective, not a cryptographic. If you have any data stored in servers in the US the authorities there can snoop through it freely thanks to the Patriot Act. That's of concern to big companies with big competitors there.

P.S. This is just another cycle, the mainframe is coming back into fashion. A few years later we'll be back to decentralised.
 
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As for South African ISP's- who offer Cloud in South Africa, Who's the best? AND please add some sort of validation to your answer. :)
 
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