for what purpose does "cloud" exist?

[B00nie]

No there isn't. There is a guy named Snowden who shed light on the fact that the government collects a lot of information. But the government hardly cares about much of it.

Hardly cares right now, but if the need arises that changes fast. Think about politicians being extorted by smut they wrote/sent/posted when they were teenagers for example.

 

[NoOther]

"Cloud computing" as per games is nothing but an online storage for game states. It has nothing to do with general cloud storage which is all but useless for anyone still stuck with a regular adsl connection for example.

Cloud backups? Imagine how long it would take for me to back up my 2Tb of data using the 1Mbit out line? And all the while the connection would be congested to hell ruining any online gaming etc.

That is entirely incorrect. There are many games and even whole systems that run off of server side computing. The end user's machine is little more than a dumb terminal. There are also numerous application services provided now to end users to use software completely online where everything is done server side, and they do not require huge network connections to make this happen.

Hardly cares right now, but if the need arises that changes fast. Think about politicians being extorted by smut they wrote/sent/posted when they were teenagers for example.

The government has had incriminating information on people for years and not used it. The potential for abuse is certainly real, but the actuality of it is not. Really there is too much effort involved to sift through all that information just looking for petty or small crimes. Certainly if someone is already being investigated for something serious, then they would sift through the information. Or if the information contained certain flags, they may look into it. But even flagged information rarely brings more than a cursory glance to it, in order to rule it out for threats.

Most governments collect information on their citizens and on foreign nations. Also most companies do the same. Even private citizens do it. How many of your conversations with friends have been recorded? I bet you would be surprised. This is a day and age where you can pretty much be expected to be recorded most of the time.

 

[Dogs]

It has nothing to do with general cloud storage which is all but useless for anyone still stuck with a regular adsl connection for example.

Cloud backups? Imagine how long it would take for me to back up my 2Tb of data using the 1Mbit out line? And all the while the connection would be congested to hell ruining any online gaming etc.

Of course, if you're stuck on a 1MBit out line, you probably aren't the kind of person capable of affording 2TB worth of cloud storage, because if you cared enough about technology to want 2TB of cloud storage and could afford it, you'd have paid more money for faster internet.

The obvious problem here is that 1.) Your example is an extreme case, and 2.) Your example has nothing to do with the intended use of cloud storage. Why would you back up 2TB of data into the cloud? That's just dumb. The cloud isn't there to be a magnetic tape, because there's already magnetic tape for that.

Cloud storage is for storage, not archival, and it's specifically for storage of things you want to access across many devices in many locations. If you want to put a backup away and never look at it until you need it, get a tape. If you want to keep a rolling backup, and only read from it when you have a problem and need it, get an external hard disk. If you want ubiquitous, reliable storage of your files, synchronized across all your devices, ready to be read or written to on demand from anywhere you please, you'll understand why cloud storage is the best, if not the only real option.

The whole point of cloud storage is that you can access your data anywhere, from anything at any time. You don't see the value because you don't understand the use. When you start looking at examples where this is desirable, instead of falling back on examples of things nobody ever planned on using the cloud for anyways, it makes a lot more sense. If you're looking to work on files from home, from the airport, and from the office, your 1Mbit upstream connection isn't going to limit you from any of that.

 

[XOR != OR]

Of course, if you're stuck on a 1MBit out line, you probably aren't the kind of person capable of affording 2TB worth of cloud storage, because if you cared enough about technology to want 2TB of cloud storage and could afford it, you'd have paid more money for faster internet.

There it is. I don't care about technology. Not from a professional stand point. I care about my clients.

I use technology for my clients. And because I care about taking care of them as best as possible, I make sure they get the best technology that fits their requirements. Not what i think is neat.. Or what I feel the industry should be using.

 

[Dogs]

There it is. I don't care about technology. Not from a professional stand point. I care about my clients.

I use technology for my clients. And because I care about taking care of them as best as possible, I make sure they get the best technology that fits their requirements. Not what i think is neat.. Or what I feel the industry should be using.

You completely missed the point of that post. Go back, read it again, and then try again. Otherwise, don't bother quoting my posts if you're not going to bother to read them.

 

[XOR != OR]

You completely missed the point of that post. Go back, read it again, and then try again. Otherwise, don't bother quoting my posts if you're not going to bother to read them.

Oh, I think I understood you just fine, thanks.

I just don't agree with your overall position. I feel it's fundamentally flawed, and puts your own ego ahead of what's best for businesses.

But to each their own. Folks like you keep me very very busy and well paid. So by all means, knock yourself out.

 

[Dogs]

Oh, I think I understood you just fine, thanks.

The point of my post was that the scenario he proposed is unrealistic. Thus, your reply makes no sense, because it is of literally no relevance to the post you quoted. It's fairly obvious that you missed that, based on the completely discontinuous reply you made.

I just don't agree with your overall position.

What is my overall position, then?

I feel it's fundamentally flawed, and puts your own ego ahead of what's best for businesses.

What's best for business is minimising cost and allowing your organisation to focus on the aspects of business it specialises in. Ego is no part of that. In fact, ego would be believing that my company can host its systems more efficiently than a world leader like Amazon can. Amazon offers services that meet our needs better than our private data centre can for less than it costs to operate our data centre, and that's generally going to be true for most businesses. It's basic economics, and confusing that for ego just makes no sense.

But to each their own. Folks like you keep me very very busy and well paid. So by all means, knock yourself out.

Folks like me keep companies like mine posting industry leading ROI and profits for decades.

 

[XOR != OR]

Folks like me keep companies like mine posting industry leading ROI and profits for decades.

hahahaha. I once worked at a place which boasted industry best budget expenditures on IT. RIO, budget against general, the whole shebang.

Of course, they were running Novell ( still are, as a matter of fact ). Oh, and AD. Several AD forests, as a matter of fact, with several "shared" ( haha ) users between them. No password syncs, no trusts. Workstations were antiquated, but they did have "clouds". Several. All with their own authentication schemes. With overlapping responsibilities, or that didn't have any because they just bought things without finding out what the business needed. It was really quite remarkable. Oh, but they had the numbers. And boy, was management proud of those numbers. Meanwhile, the rest of us that were responsible for keeping things running just this side of disaster would roll our eyes and move on to the next fire to put out.

Anyone who's worked corporate IT for any length of time knows what bullshit metrics ROI and even profits are. Well, except managers who don't actually know what their IT departments are up to, of course.

...

awkward silence

 

[Dogs]

hahahaha. I once worked at a place which boasted industry best budget expenditures on IT. RIO, budget against general, the whole shebang.

Of course, they were running Novell ( still are, as a matter of fact ). Oh, and AD. Several AD forests, as a matter of fact, with several "shared" ( haha ) users between them. No password syncs, no trusts. Workstations were antiquated, but they did have "clouds". Several. All with their own authentication schemes. With overlapping responsibilities, or that didn't have any because they just bought things without finding out what the business needed. It was really quite remarkable. Oh, but they had the numbers. And boy, was management proud of those numbers. Meanwhile, the rest of us that were responsible for keeping things running just this side of disaster would roll our eyes and move on to the next fire to put out.

I'm sure you have plenty of annecdotes. Of course, annecdotes are meaningless, and you didn't address anything else I said in my post. Sorry, but misdirection isn't going to help you here.

Furthermore, quantitative results cannot be undermined. The numbers say we're making money hand over fist, so at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what our IT department is doing; It's working.

Finally, you'll notice I never said industry leading 'budget expenditures'. I said industry leading profit, and if you're capable of confusing the two, you're not the kind of person capable of understanding what a business needs, period. Industry leading 'budget expenditures' would mean we were spending a minimal amount of money on our IT department, when in fact we spend far more than is required to keep our operations running. We have an R&D budget. We offer above average training and education benefits. We spend extra money on our IT department, because we can use the resources that buys us to be more competitive in other departments. We aren't strictly a 'keep the lights on' IT department, or a 'technology fire extinquisher' department.

You like to say that you'll use cloud technologies if it's right for the company's needs, but you're getting very offensive towards those of us who are supportive of cloud technology. It sounds like a personal problem, to me.

Anyone who's worked corporate IT for any length of time knows what bullshit metrics ROI and even profits are. Well, except managers who don't actually know what their IT departments are up to, of course.

Sure, you keep telling people that. It'd take an incompetent fool to believe that those are 'bullshit' metrics. No company can survive without postive numbers in those areas. My corporation exists for profit, much like the vast and expansive majority of corporations, so the de facto standard for measuring the performance of an IT department is whether or not it facilitates that goal. Mine does. You may have worked somewhere where profitability is not the main goal (public jobs, the government, etc.), and if you have, I'm sure you have found it not to be a picture of IT perfection.

 

[odoe]

Way off topic now, keep things to the actual topic OP.

 

[Hawkbox]

Oh, I think I understood you just fine, thanks.

I just don't agree with your overall position. I feel it's fundamentally flawed, and puts your own ego ahead of what's best for businesses.

But to each their own. Folks like you keep me very very busy and well paid. So by all means, knock yourself out.

I've seen people fired from corporate IT for incompetence make a ton of money selling shitty solutions to small businesses that don't know any better. So you may want to tone down the self righteousness a little.

Edit: Cloud for the most part is fine if you use it for the intended purpose. AWS is very handy if you need to host a high traffic site and can't afford the infrastructure. Their long term storage is also pretty decent. I quite liked the way Azure operated but I don't have any practical use for it right now. Office 365 would probably be a perfect solution for my office.

 

[B00nie]

Of course, if you're stuck on a 1MBit out line, you probably aren't the kind of person capable of affording 2TB worth of cloud storage, because if you cared enough about technology to want 2TB of cloud storage and could afford it, you'd have paid more money for faster internet.

Riiiight... My quoted price for a fiber optical connection is 9500 dollars. Would you pay for it? I live in a house which is far away from the city center.

The obvious problem here is that 1.) Your example is an extreme case, and 2.) Your example has nothing to do with the intended use of cloud storage. Why would you back up 2TB of data into the cloud? That's just dumb. The cloud isn't there to be a magnetic tape, because there's already magnetic tape for that.

What other use is there for a PC user except backup? For work I already have everything I need provided by ourselves.

Cloud storage is for storage, not archival, and it's specifically for storage of things you want to access across many devices in many locations. If you want to put a backup away and never look at it until you need it, get a tape. If you want to keep a rolling backup, and only read from it when you have a problem and need it, get an external hard disk. If you want ubiquitous, reliable storage of your files, synchronized across all your devices, ready to be read or written to on demand from anywhere you please, you'll understand why cloud storage is the best, if not the only real option.

Uh, I already have portable storage called my laptop. What use do I have for a cloud? If I need to store something online I'll just scp them to the web server of ours. And that need basically only arises when I need to share something with the clients.

If I wanted to sync my files across many devices I would build a solution to my home network where I can access it at 1Gbit. I would never ever store any sensitive information to some third party hosting.

The whole point of cloud storage is that you can access your data anywhere, from anything at any time. You don't see the value because you don't understand the use. When you start looking at examples where this is desirable, instead of falling back on examples of things nobody ever planned on using the cloud for anyways, it makes a lot more sense. If you're looking to work on files from home, from the airport, and from the office, your 1Mbit upstream connection isn't going to limit you from any of that.

Any data that I possibly can need to access is available to me on my portable device i.e. my MBP. Our company naturally has a native "cloud" CRM/ERP solution for me to use. I have zero need for a third party cloud outside of theoretical backups which as shown earlier are not practical.

 

[B00nie]

That is entirely incorrect. There are many games and even whole systems that run off of server side computing. The end user's machine is little more than a dumb terminal. There are also numerous application services provided now to end users to use software completely online where everything is done server side, and they do not require huge network connections to make this happen.

You're talking about web hosted games. I don't count them as 'games' but as web apps for the cannon fodder. Perfect for anyone who wants to be scammed or social engineered through web exploits

The government has had incriminating information on people for years and not used it.

It hasn't? Hmm the historians must be wrong then. I thought the history was filled with governmental use and abuse of sensitive information. Think Hoovers spying on the presidents, you think he didn't use the information he had against them?

Most governments collect information on their citizens and on foreign nations. Also most companies do the same. Even private citizens do it. How many of your conversations with friends have been recorded? I bet you would be surprised. This is a day and age where you can pretty much be expected to be recorded most of the time.

Well, none of my conversations can be recorded legally anyway. Illegally who knows. I'm pretty sure I don't have wire taps in my house or my car however.

 

[wonderfield]

"Games don't count as games".

 

[Dogs]

Riiiight... My quoted price for a fiber optical connection is 9500 dollars. Would you pay for it? I live in a house which is far away from the city center.

What was your quoted price for 2.5 TB of cloud storage space? Why did you choose to live so far from the city? If you had any real need to back up 2.5TB into the cloud, you'd already have a faster connection.

What other use is there for a PC user except backup?

Like I said, file synchronization and device/location agnosticism. These are the primary reasons someone would use cloud storage. Backing up their PC is not a reason someone would use cloud storage, so while your bandwidth might prevent you from doing that, it doesn't really matter since that's not something any sane or rational person would want to do anyways. Certainly you don't try to light an empty pool on fire in the hopes that the fire department will fill it up for you? You don't have an upside down panzer tank that you use as a treadmill do you? Of course cloud computing is going to seem impractical if you're not using it for its intended purpose.

Uh, I already have portable storage called my laptop.

What do you do when you don't have your laptop? What if you're not the only person accessing and modifying this data?

What use do I have for a cloud?

Have you ever done international travel? Depending on where you're going, your company probably won't let you take your laptop with you. What if your laptop breaks? What if it gets stolen? What if you're on a cruise and it's supposed to be your vacation so you didn't bring your laptop, but your work is having a production issue and your boss wants you to forgo your R&R to get it fixed? It's not that all of these things happen all of the time, but when they do happen, it's nice to have something that's orders of magnitude more flexible than 'your laptop'.

If I need to store something online I'll just scp them to the web server of ours.

See...some of us follow these things called 'best practices'. If you did that with one of the web servers at my company, I'd fire you.

If I wanted to sync my files across many devices I would build a solution to my home network where I can access it at 1Gbit. I would never ever store any sensitive information to some third party hosting.

I thought you said you only had 1Mbit upload from your house. Or are you saying it'd be local only, and therefore useless? Also, a few world wars ago we invented something called encryption.

Any data that I possibly can need to access is available to me on my portable device i.e. my MBP. Our company naturally has a native "cloud" CRM/ERP solution for me to use. I have zero need for a third party cloud outside of theoretical backups which as shown earlier are not practical.

Unfortunately, you aren't the entire world, though, so all you have done is demonstrate that you personally don't want to use cloud services. This does not support your claim that cloud services are useless to anybody without a fast connection.

 

[Tsumi]

It hasn't? Hmm the historians must be wrong then. I thought the history was filled with governmental use and abuse of sensitive information. Think Hoovers spying on the presidents, you think he didn't use the information he had against them?

Politicians use that information for personal political gain, and they will actively seek out that kind of information.

Information that is passively collected isn't regularly sifted through unless it contains something that sets off a red flag.

 

[B00nie]

What was your quoted price for 2.5 TB of cloud storage space? Why did you choose to live so far from the city? If you had any real need to back up 2.5TB into the cloud, you'd already have a faster connection.

ROFL do you read what you write before you splurge it out?

Who would want to live in a city when I can have my own estate and no neighbours to bother me.

Like I said, file synchronization and device/location agnosticism. These are the primary reasons someone would use cloud storage. Backing up their PC is not a reason someone would use cloud storage, so while your bandwidth might prevent you from doing that, it doesn't really matter since that's not something any sane or rational person would want to do anyways. Certainly you don't try to light an empty pool on fire in the hopes that the fire department will fill it up for you? You don't have an upside down panzer tank that you use as a treadmill do you? Of course cloud computing is going to seem impractical if you're not using it for its intended purpose.

I see no need for 'file synchronization' that can't happen within my LAN. My mobile devices can handle all my file needs without cloud storage.

What do you do when you don't have your laptop? What if you're not the only person accessing and modifying this data?

I have no use for the data if I have no device to work with it in the first place. I wouldn't know who on earth would be modifying my data besides me... The principle of data integrity alone states that the owner of the data is responsible for the accuracy of it therefore it's bad practice to have 'several cooks stirring the same soup'.

Have you ever done international travel? Depending on where you're going, your company probably won't let you take your laptop with you. What if your laptop breaks? What if it gets stolen? What if you're on a cruise and it's supposed to be your vacation so you didn't bring your laptop, but your work is having a production issue and your boss wants you to forgo your R&R to get it fixed? It's not that all of these things happen all of the time, but when they do happen, it's nice to have something that's orders of magnitude more flexible than 'your laptop'.

Uh.. won't let me take my laptop? LOL! I guess I would be going on vacation then. But hey, I take my laptop even there. Laptop breakage would be extremely bad luck if it happened while I'm abroad. Even worse luck would be to have the only non-recoverable component (SSD/HDD) fail. Then I'd be admittedly screwed. All the work stuff is done utilizing our native self hosted system so no work wise I'm not device dependent and do use our native 'cloud' services. What I was referring to was third party cloud storage which can't be trusted further than I can spit.

I do not store any sensitive material anywhere that's not hosted by us and I don't use any social media. All web logins etc. are under fake credentials to the services I use (such as this).

See...some of us follow these things called 'best practices'. If you did that with one of the web servers at my company, I'd fire you.

Why would that be? Web servers are there to be used. Maybe yours are sitting just for decorative purposes. We actually use the capacity when it's needed

I thought you said you only had 1Mbit upload from your house. Or are you saying it'd be local only, and therefore useless? Also, a few world wars ago we invented something called encryption.

My LAN obviously works at 1Gb. Encrypting and decrypting all my cloud hosted files sounds very convenient and labor effective solution... NOT!

Unfortunately, you aren't the entire world, though, so all you have done is demonstrate that you personally don't want to use cloud services. This does not support your claim that cloud services are useless to anybody without a fast connection.

You're quite wrong as I am the entire world. Tell me one scenario where a cloud stored file would be more convenient to me than having it locally available using a mobile device. I guess you're talking about the 'wake up missing your clothes, wallet and mobile devices but all is saved when I can access my .doc from an internet cafe' scenario? Even a simple document is cumbersome to access through the cloud compared to loading it from local SSD On any work files, any documents which are owned by me sit locally at my drive and get stored to the document handling system that resides in our cloud. I would not, however, under any circumstances want to store any of my files, personal or not, to some cloud storage provider who can pull 'megaupload' at any time and leave me dry.

 

[Dogs]

Who would want to live in a city when I can have my own estate and no neighbours to bother me.

Because of infrastructure? I can understand wanting to live in the middle of nowhere, but compromises must be made. Sometimes that compromise is access to technology.

I see no need for 'file synchronization' that can't happen within my LAN. My mobile devices can handle all my file needs without cloud storage.

LANs are localized. Do you ever leave your property?

I have no use for the data if I have no device to work with it in the first place. I wouldn't know who on earth would be modifying my data besides me... The principle of data integrity alone states that the owner of the data is responsible for the accuracy of it therefore it's bad practice to have 'several cooks stirring the same soup'.

You clearly haven't worked at a real company then. Have you ever done software development? You won't find a good development shop that doesn't have several cooks 'stirring the same soup'. The nice thing about technology is that it is smart, and can make such things happen safely. In the development example, there's source control. In the file example, there's cloud services. Even things like google docs allow simultaneous, collaborative editing. Google docs is a great example of cloud services being useful to everyday people.

What I was referring to was third party cloud storage which can't be trusted further than I can spit.

Which third party companies have you worked with, and why couldn't they be trusted? What did they do wrong?

I do not store any sensitive material anywhere that's not hosted by us and I don't use any social media. All web logins etc. are under fake credentials to the services I use (such as this).

That just sounds more to me like you're just not important enough at your company.

Why would that be? Web servers are there to be used. Maybe yours are sitting just for decorative purposes. We actually use the capacity when it's needed

Well for starters, that would imply that you have an outward facing SCP service on your web server, which is stupid. Additionally, you putting files on a production web server would be stupid, because that means the production web server is no longer sanitary, and having a non-production web server that is outward facing is also stupid. Using a production environment for anything other than its strictly production purpose is stupid. Finally, the fact that you are able to put things on the server without going through a proper deployment process is stupid. The risks are excessive, as well, unless of course your company doesn't do anything important. Production outages are expensive, as are audit failures.

My LAN obviously works at 1Gb.

Your LAN is only effective where your LAN is, though. Have you ever in your entire life left your home?

Encrypting and decrypting all my cloud hosted files sounds very convenient and labor effective solution... NOT!

It's actually fairly trivial if you have even the slightest clue how to do it. Much less work than, for example, setting up your own synchronization over LAN, or pushing files back and forth across your laptop and other devices manually.

You're quite wrong as I am the entire world. Tell me one scenario where a cloud stored file would be more convenient to me than having it locally available using a mobile device. Even a simple document is cumbersome to access through the cloud compared to loading it from local SSD On any work files, any documents which are owned by me sit locally at my drive and get stored to the document handling system that resides in our cloud. I would not, however, under any circumstances want to store any of my files, personal or not, to some cloud storage provider who can pull 'megaupload' at any time and leave me dry.

I already detailed those examples multiple times. Feel free to consult the thread.

Furthermore, you clearly don't understand how files in the cloud can be accessed. A document is no more cumbersome to access from the cloud than it is your SSD, because they're both simply sitting in a 'folder' on your computer. The procedure to open them is identical. The only difference is that one merely 'looks' like it is in a folder, when it is actually off in the cloud somewhere.

 

[atom]

Clouds are a gimmick for simply storing stuff on a remote server that just doesn't need to be. Lots of applications have been doing this for a hundred years but didn't use fancy terminology. They refer to "the cloud" like its an actual place. I don't like that my steam game data is constantly syncing with The Cloud. I don't like having to fight MS Word to save on my hard drive instead of on "The Cloud." Thin client? No now that's a Cloud. Server settings? Cloud Syncing.

XBONE cloud computing? Nobody knows, but they know it will change the world and make that APU out-power a gaming PC with quad Titans.

Folding@home? Wasting electricity the cloud way.

</Rant>

http://www.theonion.com/video/hp-on-that-cloud-thing-that-everyone-else-is-talki,28789/

 

[B00nie]

Because of infrastructure? I can understand wanting to live in the middle of nowhere, but compromises must be made. Sometimes that compromise is access to technology..

So I guess now that you broadened your perspective a little you may find out that there are loads of people who prefer privacy, nature and living space over a fast network connection.

LANs are localized. Do you ever leave your property?

When I leave my property I sure as hell don't carry a bag of devices with me that would require a cloud sync

You clearly haven't worked at a real company then. Have you ever done software development? You won't find a good development shop that doesn't have several cooks 'stirring the same soup'. The nice thing about technology is that it is smart, and can make such things happen safely. In the development example, there's source control. In the file example, there's cloud services. Even things like google docs allow simultaneous, collaborative editing. Google docs is a great example of cloud services being useful to everyday people.

Actually I own 25% of a software company and participate in development every day. There is only one project lead who makes the final decision and he is responsible solely for the documentation. This is the only way to ensure integrity. If many persons append to the same document nobody in the end can understand it. Google docs is a great example of a disaster waiting to happen. For a private person I can't figure out any feasible reason to store anything to Google docs and if a company uses it it's a clear sign that they lack proper management tools and are in dire trouble IT wise.

Which third party companies have you worked with, and why couldn't they be trusted? What did they do wrong?

I have not and will not use third party cloud storage providers. Megaupload is a fine example of what can happen if the provider gets into financial or legal trouble. Hundreds of thousands of users lost their data *poof*.

That just sounds more to me like you're just not important enough at your company.

Well for starters, that would imply that you have an outward facing SCP service on your web server, which is stupid. Additionally, you putting files on a production web server would be stupid, because that means the production web server is no longer sanitary, and having a non-production web server that is outward facing is also stupid. Using a production environment for anything other than its strictly production purpose is stupid. Finally, the fact that you are able to put things on the server without going through a proper deployment process is stupid. The risks are excessive, as well, unless of course your company doesn't do anything important. Production outages are expensive, as are audit failures.

SCP service? It uses a regular SSH connection which is needed for every server in order to maintain it lol. Why do you think it would be 'non sanitary' to share documents and other public files using a web folder? You're funny. I can put a million files available there without disturbing the other content in any shape or form. It seems like you have no clue about how a http server works

Your LAN is only effective where your LAN is, though. Have you ever in your entire life left your home?

I have everything I need synced in my mobile devices when I leave home. And as previously said anything project related is being handled by our own management system.

It's actually fairly trivial if you have even the slightest clue how to do it. Much less work than, for example, setting up your own synchronization over LAN, or pushing files back and forth across your laptop and other devices manually.

Everything works automatically as it is, no effort needed on my part.

I already detailed those examples multiple times. Feel free to consult the thread.

Feel free to think of examples that are actually practical possibilities. When I travel I never leave my laptop unguarded and if I get robbed at gunpoint, losing the hardware would be my least worry at that stage

Furthermore, you clearly don't understand how files in the cloud can be accessed. A document is no more cumbersome to access from the cloud than it is your SSD, because they're both simply sitting in a 'folder' on your computer. The procedure to open them is identical. The only difference is that one merely 'looks' like it is in a folder, when it is actually off in the cloud somewhere.

You clearly don't understand that a large file opens in 0,1 seconds when accessed from the SSD and muuuuch much longer if it's downloaded from a server far far away. Especially if I'm behind a 3G or worse connection during travel.

 

[Dogs]

When I leave my property I sure as hell don't carry a bag of devices with me that would require a cloud sync

No, you bring one device, upon which changes are made, thus necessitating the sync in the first place. If you brought all of your devices everywhere, you'd have no need for syncing. But with only one device, you'll only ever have synchronization when all of your devices are at home. Even if you simply forget to grab your laptop from work in the evening (or worse, what if your laptop had a failure before you were able to get home and sync). You can approximate the functionality with other setups, but it will never be as flexible or as fault-tolerant as cloud storage is.

Actually I own 25% of a software company and participate in development every day. There is only one project lead who makes the final decision and he is responsible solely for the documentation.

You pay a lead to do documentation? That's just wasteful. Good tech writers cost about a half or a third what a good 'project lead' (not sure if you're talking about a lead developer or a project manager, but in either case that stands) costs. I'm not sure about this 'company' you keep claiming to work for.

This is the only way to ensure integrity. If many persons append to the same document nobody in the end can understand it.

That's not true at all. Now I really don't think you actually do software development. With proper practices, you can easily have multiple contributors on a file, a document, a code base, etc. Otherwise, it would be impossible to get large projects done. If you're having problems with collaborative work, that's because you're not doing it correctly. It's not because collaborative work is impossible.

Google docs is a great example of a disaster waiting to happen.

No it isn't.

I have not and will not use third party cloud storage providers. Megaupload is a fine example of what can happen if the provider gets into financial or legal trouble. Hundreds of thousands of users lost their data *poof*.

Then it is clear that you don't understand the cloud, and that your claims of its uselessness are out of ignorance.

SCP service? It uses a regular SSH connection which is needed for every server in order to maintain it lol.

Nobody at any sane business uses SSH on a production server from outside of strict firewall rules and subnetting. If you can access a production server from home (be it either over VPN or worse, simply through the outside internet), you're not doing it right.

Why do you think it would be 'non sanitary' to share documents and other public files using a web folder? You're funny. I can put a million files available there without disturbing the other content in any shape or form. It seems like you have no clue about how a http server works

You changed what's deployed. Any time you do that, you risk causing a problem. One mistyped scp command and you can bring down a production environment. Additionally, having a setup where employees can freely tinker with your production environment with no checks and balances is a great way for a rogue employee or a hacker to cause significant harm with ease. Maybe for your business you can lose part of your web precense and nobody knows or cares. Where I work, an outage of any system which faces the outside world would mean money lost, and if the cause of the outage was traced back to somebody being clumsy whilst trying to put cat videos on the 'web server', it would translate into job loss for said individual.

Everything works automatically as it is, no effort needed on my part.

Well lucky for you...For most people, that doesn't seem to be the case. Hence, cloud computing.

You clearly don't understand that a large file opens in 0,1 seconds when accessed from the SSD and muuuuch much longer if it's downloaded from a server far far away. Especially if I'm behind a 3G or worse connection during travel.

Well here in the modern world, most of us can open files sufficiently quickly on our sufficiently fast connections. Hence, most of us are willing to use cloud services rather than silly, mcguivered home setups.

 

[NoOther]

You're talking about web hosted games. I don't count them as 'games' but as web apps for the cannon fodder. Perfect for anyone who wants to be scammed or social engineered through web exploits

No, I am not, but its obvious from your posts that you are so far out of your league here as to be irrelevant.

It hasn't? Hmm the historians must be wrong then. I thought the history was filled with governmental use and abuse of sensitive information. Think Hoovers spying on the presidents, you think he didn't use the information he had against them?

Again, you are far out of your league on this one. Governments are known for their general abuses, and targeted dissidents, not the average citizen who might have a few naughty things stored away.

Well, none of my conversations can be recorded legally anyway. Illegally who knows. I'm pretty sure I don't have wire taps in my house or my car however.

[/quote]

Actually all your conversations can be recorded legally depending on context, location and situation. You need to review the laws more.

 

[jimh425]

Want to know more about Cloud? Do some searches on youtube. There are lots of videos out there that try to simplify what it means.

 

[Hawkbox]

If someone enabled an SSH connection into a production web server for file storage here I would break their fucking arms.

 

[Ur_Mom]

I'm on a 1Mb upload line and I have a Crashplan storage with 2TB backed up. Saved my ass big time, too about 2 months ago when a HDD failed. It's a backup (working on a secondary one, too). It takes a little over a month to back everything up or restore it, but it's well worth the time and effort.

My phone uploads/syncs my photos with Skydrive, so they are on my PC and my phone (and 'in the cloud'!). I like some so called 'cloud' features.

But, you're bandwidth limit was a concern of mine that I've mentioned to people before. Your WAN IS the connection to the cloud. If that sucks, your cloud experience will suck, and your options will be lower. You want a cloud OS or a large storage pool hosted somewhere? You need a good WAN connection. Some cloud services replace things that belong locally or on a LAN - those need GOOD connections. Others, like syncing pictures, are more lenient to the slower connections. They work, but don't rely on fast connections.

Of course, if you're stuck on a 1MBit out line, you probably aren't the kind of person capable of affording 2TB worth of cloud storage, because if you cared enough about technology to want 2TB of cloud storage and could afford it, you'd have paid more money for faster internet.

The obvious problem here is that 1.) Your example is an extreme case, and 2.) Your example has nothing to do with the intended use of cloud storage. Why would you back up 2TB of data into the cloud? That's just dumb. The cloud isn't there to be a magnetic tape, because there's already magnetic tape for that.

Cloud storage is for storage, not archival, and it's specifically for storage of things you want to access across many devices in many locations. If you want to put a backup away and never look at it until you need it, get a tape. If you want to keep a rolling backup, and only read from it when you have a problem and need it, get an external hard disk. If you want ubiquitous, reliable storage of your files, synchronized across all your devices, ready to be read or written to on demand from anywhere you please, you'll understand why cloud storage is the best, if not the only real option.

The whole point of cloud storage is that you can access your data anywhere, from anything at any time. You don't see the value because you don't understand the use. When you start looking at examples where this is desirable, instead of falling back on examples of things nobody ever planned on using the cloud for anyways, it makes a lot more sense. If you're looking to work on files from home, from the airport, and from the office, your 1Mbit upstream connection isn't going to limit you from any of that.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Synchronization and standardization of data is where the cloud is awesome. The best example is, email. You check your email on any device it is always there and correct. What you deleted is gone everywhere, what receive is everywhere. I treat some of the files on my computer the same way, automatic synchronization means many times I can leave my laptop at work and just come home to find everything already up to date on my desktop by the time I get home. I take notes on my phone and that appear in seconds on my laptop with onenote.

The mistake is to think that cloud storage removes the need for backups. As long as you are not stupid enough to think that you will be fine. If they take away your cloud you just disconnect and everything goes on.

You could do that long before someone slapped the hype word "cloud" on it.

It's just a user friendly name slapped onto technology we've been using since the mainframe days, with an advantage of being publicly accessible and more scalable.

Exactly the "cloud" as we know it today has existed for a long time, just more used in business environments and was more expensive.

Someone made it cheap and slapped a term on it that would draw the general public to it easier.

 

[B00nie]

No, you bring one device, upon which changes are made, thus necessitating the sync in the first place. If you brought all of your devices everywhere, you'd have no need for syncing. But with only one device, you'll only ever have synchronization when all of your devices are at home. Even if you simply forget to grab your laptop from work in the evening (or worse, what if your laptop had a failure before you were able to get home and sync). You can approximate the functionality with other setups, but it will never be as flexible or as fault-tolerant as cloud storage is.

As I already explained nothing work related is saved solely to my laptop. If I happen to miss some personal file I've downloaded or created during the day it will not mean anything. I simply can't see any scenario where I would have use for a third party hosting.

You pay a lead to do documentation? That's just wasteful. Good tech writers cost about a half or a third what a good 'project lead' (not sure if you're talking about a lead developer or a project manager, but in either case that stands) costs. I'm not sure about this 'company' you keep claiming to work for.

We are a small company where everyone contributes their part. I have seen the mess produced by large companies as a result of so called 'teamwork'

That's not true at all. Now I really don't think you actually do software development. With proper practices, you can easily have multiple contributors on a file, a document, a code base, etc. Otherwise, it would be impossible to get large projects done. If you're having problems with collaborative work, that's because you're not doing it correctly. It's not because collaborative work is impossible.

Yes as previously mentioned I have seen the God awful mess these project teams end up with. If nobody governs all the changes made the end result is inevitably a mess.

No it isn't.

Google docs is a perfect example of abuse of tools such as Excel. Many companies use totally wrong tools (such as Excel) for tracking down projects etc. because they simply lack the knowledge on how to do things right

Then it is clear that you don't understand the cloud, and that your claims of its uselessness are out of ignorance.

That's where you're wrong. Even tech giants are known to fall. Why would I want to trust a third party for doing something I can do on my own?

Nobody at any sane business uses SSH on a production server from outside of strict firewall rules and subnetting. If you can access a production server from home (be it either over VPN or worse, simply through the outside internet), you're not doing it right.

Mmmkay. Considering I and most of our team do a lot of our work from home this is an interesting limitation How exactly are we supposed to access the server which resides 300 miles from us?

You changed what's deployed. Any time you do that, you risk causing a problem. One mistyped scp command and you can bring down a production environment. Additionally, having a setup where employees can freely tinker with your production environment with no checks and balances is a great way for a rogue employee or a hacker to cause significant harm with ease. Maybe for your business you can lose part of your web precense and nobody knows or cares. Where I work, an outage of any system which faces the outside world would mean money lost, and if the cause of the outage was traced back to somebody being clumsy whilst trying to put cat videos on the 'web server', it would translate into job loss for said individual.

As said we do not have a huge organization to worry about. We have a dedicated location for shared files which is used to this purpose and adding or removing files to or from there causes absolutely no disturbance to any other roles of that server. In order for you to be able to break something you'd a) need to have access rights to the production folders (by you I mean the access you use to scp the file) b) you'd need to be grossly negligent to mistype your file path completely wrong c) you'd need to accidentally save a file which conveniently is named exactly as some production file - which just isn't going to happen

It's clear that you're living in a paranoid world caused by too long work career in some large company

Well lucky for you...For most people, that doesn't seem to be the case. Hence, cloud computing.

But I still don't get why you'd want to use cloud storage. I can not imagine even one scenario where I would need to use multiple devices in multiple locations without having physical access between them. This kind of syncing need arises exactly when you abuse tools such as Excel to do things it's not properly capable of. I have seen such ridiculous solutions built on Excel and it's just humorous what kind of trouble the company is left with when the Excel breaks or the author of it leaves the company

Well here in the modern world, most of us can open files sufficiently quickly on our sufficiently fast connections. Hence, most of us are willing to use cloud services rather than silly, mcguivered home setups.

Statistics speak badly against you. The vast majority of this planet is behind a very slow connection. And IF I should ever need to access cloud stored files I would naturally be out of home behind a mobile connectivity which is very slow even in city centers if you're in an industrial building for example.

When I look at our client base I can also tell that even companies with 1000+ workers generally have mediocre to bad internet connections due to cost. The situation is especially bad if many people are using remotely hosted apps at the same time. You seem to be living in a 'tech bubble' where your own small circle of convenience has alienated you from the real world.

 

[Hawkbox]

Quote:
Nobody at any sane business uses SSH on a production server from outside of strict firewall rules and subnetting. If you can access a production server from home (be it either over VPN or worse, simply through the outside internet), you're not doing it right.
Mmmkay. Considering I and most of our team do a lot of our work from home this is an interesting limitation How exactly are we supposed to access the server which resides 300 miles from us?

You've never heard of Development environments or proper file repositories? That's kind of terrifying for someone that "Owns 25% of a software company".

 

[B00nie]

I'm on a 1Mb upload line and I have a Crashplan storage with 2TB backed up. Saved my ass big time, too about 2 months ago when a HDD failed. It's a backup (working on a secondary one, too). It takes a little over a month to back everything up or restore it, but it's well worth the time and effort.

My phone uploads/syncs my photos with Skydrive, so they are on my PC and my phone (and 'in the cloud'!). I like some so called 'cloud' features.

But, you're bandwidth limit was a concern of mine that I've mentioned to people before. Your WAN IS the connection to the cloud. If that sucks, your cloud experience will suck, and your options will be lower. You want a cloud OS or a large storage pool hosted somewhere? You need a good WAN connection. Some cloud services replace things that belong locally or on a LAN - those need GOOD connections. Others, like syncing pictures, are more lenient to the slower connections. They work, but don't rely on fast connections.

Yes I can see how it's convenient to have to wait for a month to sync your files again instead of just having it done in 20 minutes locally LOL!

You just argued in my favor with your post, thanks.

 

[B00nie]

You've never heard of Development environments or proper file repositories? That's kind of terrifying for someone that "Owns 25% of a software company".

I repeat my question. How else are we supposed to access the server to which we have no physical access at any time?

 

[Ur_Mom]

Yes I can see how it's convenient to have to wait for a month to sync your files again instead of just having it done in 20 minutes locally LOL!

You just argued in my favor with your post, thanks.

Much more convenient than spending my own money for an offsite backup server with a lot of redundant storage.

I guess it depends on how big your budget is and how 'convenient' you want it to be. If I need to wait a month to sync my files (which I can also send them a drive to do it overnight), I'm fine with it. My data is intact. The limiting factor is my network connection. If I have to do that once in 5 years, I'm great with that. Very convenient to have it available for a restore when needed with an up to date backup for $40 a year. I could spend money on a backup server that I take off site with me daily and maintain it and upgrade when needed, but it's more convenient to not do that. Not at [H]ard, but it's easy.

Edit - won't work for everyone's situation, but in mine - it's very convenient and I welcome it. Needs, speeds, budgets are different for everyone, so if you argue it sucks, I think it's great to have it as a solution. It works for me, but not for you. That's completely fine. You're NOT wrong. But, neither am I.

 

[B00nie]

Much more convenient than spending my own money for an offsite backup server with a lot of redundant storage.

I guess it depends on how big your budget is and how 'convenient' you want it to be. If I need to wait a month to sync my files (which I can also send them a drive to do it overnight), I'm fine with it. My data is intact. The limiting factor is my network connection. If I have to do that once in 5 years, I'm great with that. Very convenient to have it available for a restore when needed with an up to date backup for $40 a year. I could spend money on a backup server that I take off site with me daily and maintain it and upgrade when needed, but it's more convenient to not do that. Not at [H]ard, but it's easy.

Hey, whatever works for you! But in my case having to wait a day let alone a month in order to regain access to all the files again would be almost as disastrous as having no backup at all.

 

[Ur_Mom]

Hey, whatever works for you! But in my case having to wait a day let alone a month in order to regain access to all the files again would be almost as disastrous as having no backup at all.

In that case, local backups are much better (NAS, whatever). Family photos, tax records, etc are less time critical. But, I do have my PC's backing up to the server then the server to Crashplan. So, I do have a partial backup if the server takes a shit. But, the server stores a lot of things that aren't on the PC's, too (which is where Crashplan helped).

 

[nekrosoft13]

Guys, what is the purpose of cloud?
I don't want my files in the net. And this "thing" is only like 1 or 5 gbs what is that good for?
Whose idea was this cloud? Microsoft (windows 8)?

so big corporations/governments can see what you are doing/working on, what is important for you.

just look at all the recent spying activity form governments, they gotta love the cloud.

not trying to be paranoid, just preffer to be in control of my data.

got local backup in house, plus external off site backup of the most important stuff that i backup every 2-3 weeks.

 

[Dogs]

That's where you're wrong. Even tech giants are known to fall. Why would I want to trust a third party for doing something I can do on my own?

The likelihood of a company like Amazon failing is less likely than the likelihood of enough of your devices in your 'DIY' for you to lose data. Your data is more reliable in the hands of Amazon than it is in yours since Amazon is one of the largest companies around if something does go wrong with your data, you can blame (and likely seek damages from) Amazon.

These are some of the reasons companies and people alike use cloud storage. Contrary to what those in tin-foil hairdress will tell you, your data is safer in the cloud.

Mmmkay. Considering I and most of our team do a lot of our work from home this is an interesting limitation How exactly are we supposed to access the server which resides 300 miles from us?

Obviously you don't...not directly, anyways. You have a build/deployment server which accesses the production server and you access the build/deployment server and tell it to publish whatever code you just promoted into your production build from staging/regression. Nothing should ever make it onto a production server directly.
Also, see here.

An interesting example is cloud computing. I have worked for a few companies that have used cloud services to run and host some of our major customer facing web applications. Though I could not connect to the production servers directly (either physically or virtually), I was still capable of publishing to it. How was I able to do this? Proper deployment procedures.

But I still don't get why you'd want to use cloud storage. I can not imagine even one scenario where I would need to use multiple devices in multiple locations without having physical access between them.

Other people can, though, because other people like having their content synchronized automatically, and these people want a real company in charge of that, not some ball of ductape running in the corner of their house.

This kind of syncing need arises exactly when you abuse tools such as Excel to do things it's not properly capable of.

Excel is properly capable of collaboration, and collaboration requires synchronization. Therefore, cloud solutions can be useful if you use Excel.

Statistics speak badly against you. The vast majority of this planet is behind a very slow connection. And IF I should ever need to access cloud stored files I would naturally be out of home behind a mobile connectivity which is very slow even in city centers if you're in an industrial building for example.

Statistically speaking, the sizes of the files people generally use cloud storage for make connection speed irrelevant. Cloud storage is useful on nearly any connection, because the people moving large (200 mb+) files around regularly are statistically irrelevant.

 

[AndreRio]

I prefer to have my data on my own computer.

 

[wonderfield]

That in no way precludes you from using cloud storage. Is this unclear to you?

 

[AndreRio]

No. But ms and others are imposing "on us" these things. first is metro; cloud. did you know that windows 9 or 10 will all be about the "cloud?" what are they trying to do? stop us from using computers by making us mad? they don't even call it anymore "my computer" it is just like this, "this pc".

 

[Tsumi]

No. But ms and others are imposing "on us" these things. first is metro; cloud. did you know that windows 9 or 10 will all be about the "cloud?" what are they trying to do? stop us from using computers by making us mad? they don't even call it anymore "my computer" it is just like this, "this pc".

/facepalm

I don't know how many times your threads and posts have made me facepalm. It's seriously getting ridiculous to the point where I can't tell if you're trolling or are just seriously completely ignorant.

If you don't want to use the cloud features, you don't have to. Just because it's there doesn't mean you're forced to use it.

Those Windows 9 and 0 are baseless rumors made by a site to get advertising hits. That's it. Anyone with a brain knows Microsoft cannot make a desktop OS completely cloud based.

 

[MrGuvernment]

They are making their products appeal to the mass "minions" who are tired of their hard drives dying and losing data and offload all of the responsibility of worry about backups to a 3rd party.

The "cloud" can be great but i like my stuff in my control under my eyes. If windows 9 and 10 go cloud only they are going to lose hundreds of millions in sales due to privacy laws companies have who can not use "cloud" systems.