What do you think of Cloud computing?

D

dioxholster

Gawd
Joined
Aug 11, 2010
Messages
801
Its a big deal now and seems to present a whole new issues for us like privacy and security. Media tells us we all will be in the "cloud". I keep reading on forums and such that the Cloud is just a marketing gimmick and that there was always a Cloud before. I'm not so sure about that, I know there was web-based applications and file synchronization but I think the Cloud is so much more, right?
 
Just like everything else you need to pick what's appropriate for your situation, based on needs, budget, security and ease of use. There's always going to be trends in computing (there was a time when the desktop computer was just a trend) and you need to make sure you're not implementing it just for the sake of implementing it.
 
I find the whole "cloud" thing is getting stupid and out of hand. Every time a client brings it up its like this fantastic way of saving all your money and everything is amazing and works and sorts every problem ever. Sadly all the marketing I see gives that impression when in fact the reality is very much different.

I can see some benefits to it for some clients, especially ones who are spread across large locations since we can save on hardware and licence costs - and data centre hosting costs.

But for now it still has a few things its missing before I would be putting an entire company in the cloud.
 
As an SMB consultant....I'm fearing it will be taking a huge bite out of what we do for a living. We basically catered to the Small to Medium Business...those of about 10 to 100 computers, that had at least one server (Often Small Business Server).

Although cloud computing has been out for a while now...it has yet to gain a lot of traction. Bandwidth a few years ago was still relatively too slow, and reliability was in question...if your DSL or cable goes out..and your office was built around cloud computing..you were dead in the water as far as production goes. But lately....with fiber and Docsis 3...the speed factor is no longer an issue. And broadband has gotten reliable.

Removing the needs for servers, and backup, and management/maintenance of those...there goes a huge chunk of our purpose as SMB consultants.

We've started getting a taste of it with Google Apps, and Hosted Exchange, and Terminal Server 08 Published Apps, and we see Microsoft really pushing it now with Office 365, and their recent acquisition of Skype..they are moving forward to provide a whole suite.

*No need for local servers and their hardware expense, and operating costs
*No need for local backup...taking the tape offsite
*More and more businesses allowing employees to work from home...this is a big benefit

Still working on wrapping my arms around it.
 
Digital-Vortex said:
I find the whole "cloud" thing is getting stupid and out of hand. Every time a client brings it up its like this fantastic way of saving all your money and everything is amazing and works and sorts every problem ever. Sadly all the marketing I see gives that impression when in fact the reality is very much different.

I can see some benefits to it for some clients, especially ones who are spread across large locations since we can save on hardware and licence costs - and data centre hosting costs.

But for now it still has a few things its missing before I would be putting an entire company in the cloud.
Click to expand...

if it saves costs, whats wrong with it then? I know that its services are divided into Software, Platform, Data and Network. not sure what any of them means specifically but I gather they are much better via Cloud than having a company host its own servers.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Still working on wrapping my arms around it.
Click to expand...

They still need someone to consult with, to set it up and keep an eye on it for them.. lots of people say how there's no IT anymore.. someone is doing the IT work, now ask them if do they really want to be?

I run a few websites for people basically as a Wordpress administrator, it's not that hard to install WP but it's not something just anyone can jump into.

Consider setting up your own cloud services, give your customers the ability to have instant phone access to you compared to what Google or whoever might give them. A local company in the neighborhood provides hosted exchange on their own equipment.
 
So some are bitter because its gonna take jobs away from people? I don't think so, company's can't fully rely on the Cloud because if something happens to it the whole company's data is at risk. What happened to Amazon could only be the beginning. So I imagine companies will have some sort of hyprid model where some of their stuff is on the cloud but they got backup for all the important data.
 
dioxholster said:
Its a big deal now and seems to present a whole new issues for us like privacy and security. Media tells us we all will be in the "cloud". I keep reading on forums and such that the Cloud is just a marketing gimmick and that there was always a Cloud before. I'm not so sure about that, I know there was web-based applications and file synchronization but I think the Cloud is so much more, right?
Click to expand...

Being in the cloud doesn't mean that everything you do will be in the cloud. Use the cloud when and where it makes sense and don't use it when and where it doesn't. I think it is great for working on the same files in different locations, but I still want local storage. I see the cloud as a temporary workspace that allows me to not have to copy files back and forth to media to work in different locations. Others will have different uses. However. I will NEVER be totally in the cloud.
 
dioxholster said:
So some are bitter because its gonna take jobs away from people? I don't think so, company's can't fully rely on the Cloud because if something happens to it the whole company's data is at risk. What happened to Amazon could only be the beginning. So I imagine companies will have some sort of hyprid model where some of their stuff is on the cloud but they got backup for all the important data.
Click to expand...

First, let's define cloud. It's not just having someone host your gear or your services. That's just hosted services or SaaS. Cloud is about auto provisioning, paying for only what you use at the time, scaling, chargeback, etc. It's not just VMs running at a hosting center.

What people forget is that "cloud" isn't the answer to all problems. You can absolutely move to a cloud-only infrastructure but that doesn't mean you throw out your DR and backup plans. People that did that are the ones that got really screwed by the AWS outage. A lot of people learned some really hard lessons but thankfully they were learned early in the life of cloud.

We've been seeing a mass migration of services, such as email, to hosted/cloud providers for a while now. Why host Exchange if you're a 50 user shop? It's just not worth it. We're 55 employees and we stopped hosting our own stuff over a year ago. We're a very good data center consulting company that has no interest in paying to run our own internal infrastructure. It just doesn't make sense.

If your business is consulting with SMB you'll need to get smarter on how they work. You'll be the person to help move them to these cloud-type offerings and also guide them in the decisions. The entire IT industry is rapidly moving away from the base infrastructure gear and in to the services and applications that actually drive business.
 
dioxholster said:
So some are bitter because its gonna take jobs away from people? I don't think so, company's can't fully rely on the Cloud because if something happens to it the whole company's data is at risk. What happened to Amazon could only be the beginning. So I imagine companies will have some sort of hyprid model where some of their stuff is on the cloud but they got backup for all the important data.
Click to expand...

Also..it's not really taking jobs from anyone. It's moving them in to more high-skilled areas. That's always the case. Someone has to provide management, consulting, and operation of those cloud services. My company builds "private clouds" for many of our customers and we can't find good people even in this recession.
 
I'm against could to be used for regular home and office users on standard computers, relying on fact your device needs internet connection tp work is seriosly bad idea for first and for second why should I give control of what I'm doing and what I have on screen to some company operating the host servers?
I feel like you can't own standalone computer because today everyone has to add some their crap to your ass with clouding it will be even worse. In some business and or special computing needs it is good, but otherwise I don't see a point in it.
 
Personally I'm against it, just because the data is going on some unknown servers that you don't have full root access to. Who knows what kind of security and policies they have. I see it as having a middle man making some decisions for you. While most cases it works out ok, I would still have more piece of mind if the servers are hosted physically where I can get to them, and I own them, as a company.

The only cloud computing I see as being good is self hosted cloud computing, basically citrix farms, vsphere farms etc.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Personally I'm against it, just because the data is going on some unknown servers that you don't have full root access to. Who knows what kind of security and policies they have. I see it as having a middle man making some decisions for you. While most cases it works out ok, I would still have more piece of mind if the servers are hosted physically where I can get to them, and I own them, as a company.

The only cloud computing I see as being good is self hosted cloud computing, basically citrix farms, vsphere farms etc.
Click to expand...

Definitely, don't forget if you need a backup to be on the opposite side of the country, server co-location in a third party facility could still be considered "cloud" usage.
 
For backups alone I could see cloud backup solutions as being viable, but you still want to have your own local backups too. It's one thing to host in an offsite facility but at least you own or at least have full access to the servers. Though for a big enough company I'd still prefer to host in house.

Different story for web hosting, often the bandwidth to the building is just not enough to give access to the whole world and you NEED to be hosted offsite / by a 3rd party. I'm referring mostly to stuff like internal corporate IT services like collaboration and so on.
 
Im wondering how the Cloud is gonna affect the user. I know this ChromeBook thing isnt for everyone but I gotta a feeling that at some point every tablet, phone, laptop will be just like ChromeBook. And is TV or media at all gonna be affected by this shift? Google Music for instance.
 
The cloud will not be really useful until internet connections are at least gigabit ethernet speeds for everyone and the threat of capped bandwidth is gone forever.
 
I keep going back and forth on this myself. Being a small IT consultant its hard to tell people about this. On the one hand the online backup is great. But on the other the security is a big concern.
 
The other issue that nags me is imposing bandwidth caps. I know that businesses can get uncapped connections, but quite a few smaller companies still rely on residential class connections. As caps get pushed down more and more, the fact that you might start to get double billed to access your data might come up (ISP costs per GB plus cloud costs).

Secondly, most businesses will have a single point of failure for cloud services, their ISP. If a cable is cut by construction, even busy work wouldn't be available.

For example, I foresee a point in time where ISP caps are ~50GB, and you have to decide what games you want to install from steam per month if you reinstall your OS, or pay your ISP extra to get your games from "the cloud"
 
Yes, while the ISP may be a point of failure it's an easy fix. People go work from home. Or a Starbucks. Or anywhere else. You won't be seeing caps on business circuits...even business class cable and DSL.

Also, very few people will go 100% cloud infrastructure. Instead the highly elastic workloads will move to a hybrid or public cloud model. That's why this won't be the end to consulting. Businesses need consultants to help navigate these issues.
 
It still seems that there is a fairly steep entry point for people who want to "use" the "cloud."

For instance, myself - I'm trying to move my companies hosting to "the cloud" because currently we host a bunch of different clients on one single dedicated server, and we're sort of vulnerable to any sort of serious database failure, etc. Rather then buy more dedicate servers to handle backups and such, we can fairly cheaply run cheaper machines (micro instance on EC2 for instance) that can handle tasks like running backups, etc.

Also, with the cloud, we can fairly easily and CHEAPLY without a lot of initial costs test things like restoring backups in the case of catastrophic failure, spinning up new servers (instances) in the case of serious traffic spikes, etc. I can have 5 serious machines running to test load balancing and performance and pay a few dollars for a few hours of the server time.

Plus, I can move backups (etc) to S3, for pretty cheap, and have a very reliable, basically brainless backup space. Of course, totally relying on Amazon isn't smart, without some sort of fallback plan, but while EC2 isn't exactly bulletproof (as seen a few weeks back!), EC2 is still beta believe, and as far as I know there haven't been very many (if any) serious issues with S3.

All of that said, I'm still far from really understanding what I need to do to get a rock solid, reliable, and scalable hosting setup in the cloud.
 
I think that it is potentially the most effective push for world domination that we have seen thus far.
 
It's changing the way people are thinking about servers and datacenters, that's for sure. The buzz word hype is still quite ridiculous though. The definition is also quite fuzzy which does not help. Either way, on demand computing infrastructure that can be automated using code, is quite enticing, whichever way you slice it.
 
ars_road said:
It's changing the way people are thinking about servers and datacenters, that's for sure. The buzz word hype is still quite ridiculous though. The definition is also quite fuzzy which does not help. Either way, on demand computing infrastructure that can be automated using code, is quite enticing, whichever way you slice it.
Click to expand...

This. Again. It's not just hosting servers somewhere else. It's on demand infrastructure. Scale out as you need and only pay for what you use. If your customers are small and use DSL...they aren't usually the ideal target for cloud. My cloud customers are those with large front-end web farms that they want to scale up at certain times of the year. Before they bought and paid for infrastructure that was underused much of the time. Now they can just scale up to a Verizon or Terramark.
 
I preach heavily against the cloud! Control and own your own data/programs.

95% of my customer base is residential and can easily be taught to control their critical data. I LMAO at my neighbor who paid for carbonite for his 600MB of pics!!! I'm like dude all you had to do was call me and ask me and I would have burned you a stinking CD!!!!

Needless to say carbonite cancelled and he is now backed up.
 
mathewmatics said:
I preach heavily against the cloud! Control and own your own data/programs.

95% of my customer base is residential and can easily be taught to control their critical data. I LMAO at my neighbor who paid for carbonite for his 600MB of pics!!! I'm like dude all you had to do was call me and ask me and I would have burned you a stinking CD!!!!

Needless to say carbonite cancelled and he is now backed up.
Click to expand...

He keeps that offsite and updates it weekly at worse, right?
 
caniba said:
The cloud will not be really useful until internet connections are at least gigabit ethernet speeds for everyone and the threat of capped bandwidth is gone forever.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. They are trying to push this shit up in Canada... well some ISPs do it already, but they are trying to push it so it's all ISPs. I think caps are ridiculous. It's not like energy where it costs them more when you use more. The equipment and cabling costs the same money regardless of how much of it is actually used.
 
NetJunkie said:
This. Again. It's not just hosting servers somewhere else. It's on demand infrastructure. Scale out as you need and only pay for what you use. If your customers are small and use DSL...they aren't usually the ideal target for cloud. My cloud customers are those with large front-end web farms that they want to scale up at certain times of the year. Before they bought and paid for infrastructure that was underused much of the time. Now they can just scale up to a Verizon or Terramark.
Click to expand...
I mostly agree. But small outfits are imo even better suited for cloud services because economy of scale allows cloud provider to provide better/cheaper service than one could afford otherwise.
 
mathewmatics said:
I preach heavily against the cloud! Control and own your own data/programs.
Click to expand...
But how well? And how much will that cost you? Thing is, cloud provider can afford experts in the field to handle that for you.

I'm not saying you should go cloud all the time, but reality is, a lot of customers can't take care of their data/security/whatever and having someone else do it for them, they're actually better off. If you're worried about privacy/security there's SAs and penalties to handle that.

Of course there'll always be smartass cloud providers trying to cut corners, but that happens in every field, right?
 
Red Squirrel said:
That's a good point. They are trying to push this shit up in Canada... well some ISPs do it already, but they are trying to push it so it's all ISPs. I think caps are ridiculous. It's not like energy where it costs them more when you use more. The equipment and cabling costs the same money regardless of how much of it is actually used.
Click to expand...
Actually more traffic draws more power (meaning higher electricity bills/more cooling) but there's usually not that much of a difference :)

You don't need gbps lines for cloud. For most users/uses <10mbps is enough. BW caps are more of a problem. We're having them only because providers are scared of losing subscriber base on other services but wider cloud usage is going to force them to raise bw caps.

Personally, I don't see this as a limiting factor but I may be wrong.
 
mathewmatics said:
I LMAO at my neighbor who paid for carbonite for his 600MB of pics!!! I'm like dude all you had to do was call me and ask me and I would have burned you a stinking CD!!!!

Needless to say carbonite cancelled and he is now backed up.
Click to expand...

Why did you laugh at him?
Where does he keep that CD? In his house/apartment? What if there is a fire? If that CD melts in a fire, the 60 bucks he paid for Carbonite became worth it. I wouldn't be pointing at him and laughing out loud when he's bummed that he lost his pics.
 
I think there is definitely a place for cloud services, but that doesn't mean a 100% migration to having everything hosted.

My company does SMB consulting like many others in here, but I am also a Microsoft BPOS partner and MozyPro reseller. I sell BPOS to very small companies that wouldn't efficiently utilize a SBS server, but want the benefits of Exchange and Sharepoint and/or are geographically spread out. I have customers using MozyPro ranging from home users for their single desktops to larger SBS customers that just want a second offsite backup.

I can't foresee our company diving in much deeper than that in the near future because our customers don't need anything more complex, but as the services develop, it is certainly a possibility.
 
mathewmatics said:
I preach heavily against the cloud! Control and own your own data/programs.

95% of my customer base is residential and can easily be taught to control their critical data. I LMAO at my neighbor who paid for carbonite for his 600MB of pics!!! I'm like dude all you had to do was call me and ask me and I would have burned you a stinking CD!!!!

Needless to say carbonite cancelled and he is now backed up.
Click to expand...

That is horrible and you should not be giving tech advice. If all he had was 600MB he did not have to pay for anything since just about all of these services give you 2GB for FREE!!!! Dropbox, Mozy, etc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top