Cloud computing

I haven't been living in the amazon and this is the first time I have heard the term cloud computing. An interesting statement to make.
 
Also never heard of it before. When I read the article all the concepts sounds very familiar though and could perhaps be classified under a myriad other terms already in circulation. Perhaps this is just a new buzzword to rally around?
 
Wonderful idea.. but given our "bandwidth" issues in ZA it is about as much use as a chocolate frying pan. Until bandwidth becomes affordable and the magical 3G bandwidth allocation becomes history and Telkom comes out of the dark ages and we get rid of Ivy and her cronies I suspect we may as well go live in the amazon.
 
Unless you've been living in the deepest, darkest unconnected part of the Amazon rain forest for the past year
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No, I was living in South Africa... the deepest, darkest unconnected part of the internet :( A million times worse than the Amazon. Cos Telkom makes even a simple thing like cloud computing an expensive exercise for me.

Even checking my Gmail costs me more than most users in other parts of the world. :mad:
 
Cloud computing, not for me. Up to a certain point for email
and calenders and stuff but then slows down. Dropbox synx
feature sounds cool, but will i put private and confidential stuff
on... heck no. Serious security issues! duh
As for telkom, they are upgrading new exchanges (inside eye)
but still putting in old copper lines. Neotel sites have full fibre and
wimax IP based stuff what i`ve seen. Just when oh when will they
get big enough///
 
fritzdeelman said:
Also never heard of it before. When I read the article all the concepts sounds very familiar though and could perhaps be classified under a myriad other terms already in circulation. Perhaps this is just a new buzzword to rally around?
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When you've been in the industry long enough you realise that very few concepts are new but vendors love to give them new names so they can sell it all over again. :rolleyes:

Cloud computing is nothing but a centralised computing model which was the dominant computing model from the first days of computing to the middle 80's, aka the mainframe era.

Various issues drove the development of a decentralised model that resulted in the 'Personal Computer' model we have today. But as with all models, it brought its own problems (support, for example) and thus we see a resurgence in a centralised model supporting thin clients.

This 'pendulum effect' (where we swing between opposing models) will be with us till the end of time. It's human nature to believe problems in any model will automatically be fixed by the opposing model. :rolleyes:

The term 'Cloud Computing' stems from the way the internet is typically drawn as an element in architecture diagrams, i.e. as a cloud and depicts the fact that we only understand the entry and exit points into the cloud itself but normally do not have visibility into the actual devices that make up the cloud.

Thus the system that will hold your data and/or provide the application to manipulate it, is somewhere in this 'cloud'.

Cloud computing dovetails very well with mobile devices and web browsers, so its got a strong future.
 
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err...what does rapidshare have to do with cloud computing?
 
Well being with DropBox and its a great version control for end-users that do not want to learn CVS or SUBVERSION. Its easy to use and will install it on my dad's laptop.
 
For interest's sake, the Amazon EC2 and related services were all developed at Amazon's Cape Town offices.

It is actually a pretty novel way of marketing grid computing to the public. I certainly haven't seen anything like this before. There isn't much hidden by the "cloud." You get a machine on which you can load whatever image you want. You have full access to the machine(s) and their rates are certainly cheaper than buying and maintaining your own computing grid.

For many applications, you can download data straight onto the machines from the Internet and process them. All you need to download are the results.

As for the much moaned about bandwidth limitation, bear in mind that your average user of grid or "cloud" computing isn't pulling the data over their home connection so it isn't an issue. And the terrabit SEACOM cable is coming in June... so never fear. :D
 
Cloud computing seems to be almost like Remote Desktop for internet, but not quite.
Wikipedia defines it as having different branches (application&client&infrastructure&platform&service&storage)

Peer to peer and Rapidshare borderlines somewhere between application and storage.
Rapidshare is a paid service where one can upload your data. If you upload your data can you choose who you share it with?
Now there clouds of data that they need so siff or maybe close down.
Dropbox terms and conditions states "YOU CONSENT TO ALLOW DROPBOX TO ACCESS YOUR COMPUTER TO ACCESS ANY FILES THAT ARE PLACED IN THE 'MY DROPBOX,' 'DROPBOX' FOLDERS, AND/OR ANY OTHER FOLDER WHICH YOU CHOOSE TO LINK TO DROPBOX"
And how many people read the terms.
Gmail i can store 7gb but i have never read there terms...
And i am sure its gonna grow
 
Actually when I first heard the term "cloud computing" several years ago it was referring more to the "data cloud" that was stored on the servers containing the user's data. Google was a good example of this, as there was no one discrete set of backups, but rather a "distributed cloud" of user data spread across the entire network of Google servers. The idea was that any damage to the data could be repaired or replaced by the cloud data. So "cloud computing" was therefore any interface which could access this "cloud" of user data. An ethereal, discorporeal body of data accessible from multiple interfaces at multiple locations.
 
Imagine playing an insane graphic intensive game on your computer without having an expensive graphics card. The graphics is processed on the server and video is streamed to your screen.

It's coming...

Oh and the same for mobile devices then :)
 
pardon my cynicism but who's going to maintain these servers? So we can look forward to monthly windows & office subscriptions, or spyware like popups endorsed by microsoft.
Sounds like this will be a big hurdle for piracy as well.

I would prefer a terrabyte flash drive that can boot on any hardware
 
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ComfortablyFloyd said:
Imagine playing an insane graphic intensive game on your computer without having an expensive graphics card. The graphics is processed on the server and video is streamed to your screen.

It's coming...

Oh and the same for mobile devices then :)
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Imagining imagining imagining.... whoops, capped. :mad:
 
ComfortablyFloyd said:
Imagine playing an insane graphic intensive game on your computer without having an expensive graphics card. The graphics is processed on the server and video is streamed to your screen.
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+1, Okay so its many, many years away - and things like HD Video Streaming on a mass market scale still have to happen first, but this is what gets me excited about the future of *almost* free bandwidth and processing power (in other countries at least:rolleyes:)...
 
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