Not a day goes by without a dozen press releases on the topic of cloud computing thrusting their way into my inbox (ooh, matron). I think I’ve made my opinions of the cloud con clear enough in previous columns but for the benefit of newer readers, let’s just say that I think it’s cock. Well, that is, cloud computing itself isn …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

Sunday 24th February 2013 09:42 GMT Corinne

Nothing new

A friend was commenting a few days ago that some salesman had "got to" her boss, and the boss was full of this new idea of the company having a "private cloud". She pointed out that there wasn't any difference between the salesman's offering & their current system - own servers hosted at a server farm run by a specialist company - and the only difference was the trendy buzzword name.

0 0
Sunday 24th February 2013 15:40 GMT mark 63

I can access my NAS from anywhere

I can access my NAS from anywhere.

Is it cloudy'?

0 0
1. Monday 25th February 2013 11:40 GMT irneb
  
  Re: I can access my NAS from anywhere
  
  Probably more so than most "cloudy" "services" ...
  
  Seen "some" stuff where "cloud" might have been a decent idea (at least from the user's perspective). E.g. as someone commented before: instead of building your own render farm. Though that one in particular didn't work for me: AutoDesk's 360 has not rendered faster in any single test than my i7-2700, in most cases a LOT slower! And that's not even if I try using VRay with multiple PCs in slave mode. But for the most part, I DO NOT see online file storage as "cloud" - that has been FTP/WebDAV/Etc. for quite some time now.
  
  As for servers on VM running in "the cloud", yes and? Is that something new perhaps? I've seen similar since the 80's and have heard / read / learned of such from the 60's. Actually it was common practice back then, since a decent "server" cost you billions - thus you shared the damned thing with as many end users as possible to make some iota of a ROI. So you had lots of big firms selling off time on their server for lots of smaller firms. And the smaller firms could then buy time on several big firms' servers if they had a "rush-job". Only difference now is, there's more "big-firm" servers available - but that's not "new" just "more".
  
  0 0
Sunday 24th February 2013 16:49 GMT Mike Powers

Different Music

You can tell cloud computing is new 'coz the music in the TV commercial goes "wub-wub" instead of "deedly-deedly".

0 0
Sunday 24th February 2013 23:00 GMT AidanCheddar

Ugh...

I hate the term "cloud computing." It's just the internet. If anything, all "cloud computing" is backing up of files to catch at a later time. Since "cloud computing" is becoming more and more integrated into our lives, I use both it and local storage equally, though more so local storage. Because I don't have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to store word documents.

0 1
1. Monday 25th February 2013 11:59 GMT Don Jefe
  
  Re: Ugh...
  
  Storage is what a lot if people do with it but the idea of instantly scalable compute power is what it the fog is really all about. Do most people need instant scalable compute power: No.
  
  0 0
2. Monday 25th February 2013 13:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  @ Aidan
  
  You fail. If you weren't so busy dropping your clogs into looms maybe you would have time to actually learn something before going around badmouthing.
  
  As your technical level is such that you don't know how to spell "cache" please excuse us if we just disregard your badly-worded opinion.
  
  0 2
Monday 25th February 2013 10:03 GMT bRick

Sigh... so no security or backup or guarantee that their data will always be available? No tech support, and a file structure that probably only makes sense to themselves? With no real search function?

The only thing they have invented is a massive risk to their business.

I'm sure lots of people had data up on megaupload saying "why would we pay for this when we can get it for free?", I wonder what their doing now? Probably looking for a new job

0 0
1. Monday 25th February 2013 11:53 GMT irneb
  
  @bRick
  
  Not sure I follow what you're on about? A "free" file store is not the issue. A paid for filestore you'd expect to have some benefits - wouldn't you? Else why pay for it? This isn't "cloud", it's just an off-site file server with its own backup and support ... so ... wait ... that would be a "data centre" in the 90's.
  
  If I misunderstood and you're actually stating that "online storage" means just as bad as MegaUpload, then you're halfway correct. Even for paid servers. Data security / integrity is only finite, you can only make it better, not perfect. The issue with online is you're leaving that aspect up to someone else - which might be good or bad or both. They might have a better understanding of securing your data and making robust backups. But they might go out of business and then who can you blame for losing everything?
  
  Nope, AFAIC online storage is for sharing data to others / to other devices. Backup you should do yourself. And security means: "Don't share it, so online it out!"
  
  0 0
Monday 25th February 2013 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward

Alistair Dabbs - you're a cynical old git

- or alternately, you've been around long enough to see the recycling of old ideas dressed up as new ideas and old products relaunched. I'm sure it was the now defunct Sun Microsystems who used to say "The network is the computer" - Software As A Service and Cloud Computing is going back to the old days of Bureau Computing, but with a real time spin.

1 0