Cloud Computing - What's your POV?

It's great for small businesses.
I dont believe it's good for a big shop. I think it's WAY overhyped. I'd be very very wary of entrusting confidential data to someone I don't have control/oversight over.

You say hell to pay if something goes wrong... But by then it's too late and your business is severely compromised.
 
Sinbad said:
I dont believe it's good for a big shop. I think it's WAY overhyped. I'd be very very wary of entrusting confidential data to someone I don't have control/oversight over.

You say hell to pay if something goes wrong... But by then it's too late and your business is severely compromised.
Click to expand...
I understand your your concerns regarding sensitivity and access to data how ever any reputable provider has SLA's in place to ensure that such information is protected and in the event of a breach there are severe penalties.

We are aware of many "big shops" who utilize visualization due to its redundancy, cost and pricing.

Folks need to steer away from the idea that their data isnt safe simply because they dont have access to the physical hardware that it resides on. There are risks associated with physical hardware,for example : We've had railkits stolen from a particular data center and management at such data center were unable to track or locate the culprit. Stealing a hard drive is way easier than walking out with a railkit.
 
Sinbad said:
It's great for small businesses.
Click to expand...
Yes it is.

I dont believe it's good for a big shop. I think it's WAY overhyped. I'd be very very wary of entrusting confidential data to someone I don't have control/oversight over.
Click to expand...
Of course its good for big business. If they really are that big there is no reason why they can not build this own cloud.

You say hell to pay if something goes wrong... But by then it's too late and your business is severely compromised.
Click to expand...
That is more likely to happen on traditional infrastructure than in a good cloud.
 
ghoti said:
Of course its good for big business. If they really are that big there is no reason why they can not build this own cloud.
Click to expand...

Size has nothing to do with it. Facebook runs on real servers. Big enough for you?


ghoti said:
That is more likely to happen on traditional infrastructure than in a good cloud.
Click to expand...

Aah, but how do you know it's a good cloud? You can't see what's behind the scenes? And even if it was, you can have the best redundancy and backup strategies but if you haven't figured out how you're going to respond if the worst happens, and more importantly, developed a reliable and accurate way to assess the damage, and figure out what exactly you need to restore, you're screwed regardless. I see this happen all the time.
 
koffiejunkie said:
Size has nothing to do with it. Facebook runs on real servers. Big enough for you?
Click to expand...

Clouds run on real servers as well.....

Facebook manages their own physical infrastructure which they make available to partners as IaaS, they maintain a PaaS service for those partners and they use both to deliver their own SaaS as well as other "facebook specific" applications provided by their partners delivered to the Facebook user base. They are also one of the largest photo repositories on the planet today and their use of inexpensive, scalable cloud storage reflects that.

They've made a massive (and awesomely impressive) investment in scaling out their own data centers to support the physical infrastructure to ensure that Facebook and their application delivery partners remain highly available to their user base.

Facebook is a perfect example of a private cloud that was designed, built and maintained to serve their own members from the public Internet.
Click to expand...
http://www.focus.com/questions/facebook-cloud/


Aah, but how do you know it's a good cloud?
Click to expand...

You do you research and use common sense? :confused:

You can't see what's behind the scenes?
Click to expand...
Depends on your size and pull with the cloud you are hosting on. Make your own if you are so big.

And even if it was, you can have the best redundancy and backup strategies but if you haven't figured out how you're going to respond if the worst happens, and more importantly, developed a reliable and accurate way to assess the damage, and figure out what exactly you need to restore, you're screwed regardless. I see this happen all the time.
Click to expand...
Then you must be a terrible admin if you do not have a proper backup system. I would have an onsite backup as per usual in case nukes hit many data centers at the same time and my cloud goes down. This is 101 stuff....
 
ghoti said:
Yes it is.


Of course its good for big business. If they really are that big there is no reason why they can not build this own cloud.
Click to expand...

Their own cloud? You mean a vmware farm? Stupid hype about stupid new terms for the same old technology.
 
Sinbad said:
Their own cloud? You mean a vmware farm? Stupid hype about stupid new terms for the same old technology.
Click to expand...

./shrug. Call it what you want. It works. There are many ways to build a cloud....
 
Sinbad said:
And castles in them ...
Click to expand...

Cutting technical argument. Have no comeback for that robust point.

Some people hate change :D Me? Ill keep up with Google, FB and Amazon :D Some people still prefer using faxes instead of the Internet so I dont expect everyone to like the cloud, but one day... almost everything will be in clouds. I bet even you are using services already hosted in the Cloud :D
 
Last edited:
Its a reality that everything is going to the cloud you just cant deny that

My source is much safer to me in the cloud than on any local machine
 
ghoti said:
Cutting technical argument. Have no comeback for that robust point.

Some people hate change :D Me? Ill keep up with Google, FB and Amazon :D Some people still prefer using faxes instead of the Internet so I dont expect everyone to like the cloud, but one day... almost everything will be in clouds. I bet even you are using services already hosted in the Cloud :D
Click to expand...

Of course. But I don't buy into the hype. It's not the solution to all our problems :) It's not the be-all and end-all.. and in the line of work I'm in, it's pretty useless...
 
Sinbad said:
Of course. But I don't buy into the hype. It's not the solution to all our problems :) It's not the be-all and end-all.. and in the line of work I'm in, it's pretty useless...
Click to expand...

Aaah well, it certainly is not for everyone, but in my line of work its perfect. In all my clients line`s of work its perfect as well. We have moved so many people into cloud based services who are incredibly happy. Costs to the clients go down and security and stability go up. I personally as of yet have to find one of our clients who this does not work for. Though I am sure there are many... just not in my line of work of running an ISP :)

Wait I lie... cloud services make ****ty gateway (proxy, firewall, contentfiltering) servers :) There! I found one! For that we still put in traditionals boxes for our clients (but normally hooked up to one or other cloud service like Cloudflare / Google Apps / Cloud monitoring solution... or something like that)
 
Last edited:
ghoti said:
Web Africa has a position for you then :D
Click to expand...

Nah, I'm not just another code monkey used for turning a design into code :P I prefer to do the whole system design and implementation myself. Working out pretty well where I am now anyways :D

Just to clarify on my standpoint: I believe it's a fad to call all virtualised, distributed services 'cloud' since someone started it. Same with 'sustainable'. The technology is good, it's progress but it's being used as a buzzword too. Do you remember the mass e-rection everyone had for 'fuzzy logic' and 'AI' a decade ago? Granted they are real fields but they get overhyped.
 
Last edited:
UnUnOctium said:
Nah, I'm not just another code monkey used for turning a design into code :P I prefer to do the whole system design and implementation myself. Working out pretty well where I am now anyways :D
Click to expand...

Neither am I... or Web Africa. I run a decently sized ISP.

Just to clarify on my standpoint: I believe it's a fad to call all virtualised, distributed services 'cloud' since someone started it. Same with 'sustainable'. The technology is good, it's progress but it's being used as a buzzword too.
Click to expand...
Its a simple word for a highly scalable (across multiple datacenters) data storage and processing with redundant secure infrastructure with many different characteristics (like web applications or virtualization). The word seems fine. To me personally, the issues most people have with clouds, is petty and based from ignorance (it seems, "cool" to hate the cloud, but so few people even understand it), but I do understand there are real applications that are not in the cloud and I do understand the cloud is not for every usage.

Do you remember the mass e-rection everyone had for 'fuzzy logic' and 'AI' a decade ago? Granted they are real fields but they get overhyped.
Click to expand...
Really, Ive been online (I remember when you first came on irc) since 1992 (and on windows since 3.0), never remember seen AI and fuzzy logic applied to business or having the business backing this does. Guess I must have missed that one out. We are talking about something that has real business application that is currently in use. Did you read the link I posted from Harvard?
 
tnero said:
Also it is pretty damn near impossible to signup with Azure using a SA credit card / billing address - it is a ridiculous blunder.
Click to expand...
I actually just did and it was no problem at all. Used a made up address with a state and zip grabbed from wikipedia. It's a normal FNB CC.
It was also no problem to sign up for Office365 before it was available in SA.
 
roguemat said:
I actually just did and it was no problem at all. Used a made up address with a state and zip grabbed from wikipedia. It's a normal FNB CC.
It was also no problem to sign up for Office365 before it was available in SA.
Click to expand...

That I believe, but there are reasons that certain services are not made available everywhere at the same time. Azure and Office 365 will be officially available in South Africa soon. And when Azure does land here it will be the fully fledged Azure: stateful VM worker roles and all.

While it is fine to play with the services before they are supported, most of our customers want that 99.9 backing Microsoft offers and rely on the support that being official brings with it... right?

What do you think of Office 365? Of Azure? You have played with both a bit I take it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X