Cloud Computing

[Roedy Green]

Is "cloud computing" a meaningless marketing buzzword or is there
something substantial behind it? Sun keeps sending me Vip-commercials
for it (Vip was a fictitious product accidentally and generically
advertised in the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie Lover Come Back).

I would like to compose an entry in the Java Glossary. What should I
say?


--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
~ Charles Darwin.

 

[Qu0ll]

Is "cloud computing" a meaningless marketing buzzword or is there
something substantial behind it? Sun keeps sending me Vip-commercials
for it (Vip was a fictitious product accidentally and generically
advertised in the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie Lover Come Back).

I would like to compose an entry in the Java Glossary. What should I
say?

Industry is always looking for new buzzwords. Cloud Computing came out of
SOA and SaaS. Though the terms may change the underlying concept of
delivering software as a service is a substantial paradigm shift from the
traditional model and is here to stay.

So it may be called something else in a few years time but it's worth
investing time into learning about it now. I guess the most prominent
branded products in this area are Google's App Engine, Amazon's services and
Windows Azure.

--
And loving it,

-Qu0ll (Rare, not extinct)
_________________________________________________
(e-mail address removed)
[Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me]

 

[Tom Anderson]

To me, the defining aspect of "cloud computing" is that I don't have control
over my data.

That's only the case if you give up control over your data. If you want
control, keep it. For instance, if you're running a typical e-commerce
site, you can run the database housing the product catalogue etc in-house,
but run your app servers out in the cloud, with plenty of memory for
caching (or even a complete copy of the catalogue on disk, which you can
update remotely). The only network traffic will be database reads on cache
misses, and writes when orders etc are made. Terminating those kinds of
requests will be far less resource-intensive than running the entire site,
so you need far lighter in-house infrastructure, but retain complete
control (if we understand the same thing by 'control', that is).

To me, the defining aspects is instant scalability. Using something like
EC2, you can go to a webpage (or programmatically to a web service) and
enlarge your app from running on a single machine to a hundred with a
single click. And moreover, you pay for what you use - you don't have to
pay a retainer to keep those 99 extra machines available. That's what
differentiates cloud from a conventional hosting provider.

The other big differences are that cloud environments provide a richer set
of facilities than a plain host - typically a persistent mass storage
facility, possibly structured as a database of some sort, and a message
queue service.

Oh, and also, you typically don't get uptime guarantees, so you have to
structure your app in such a way that it can smoothly ride over some of
its servers vanishing with no warning! This is why the facilities are so
important - keeping all the important state in the storage service and
using the queue to manage requests helps you do this.

tom

 

[Roedy Green]

GIYF and WIYF.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=cloud+computing>

The problem is what is written sounds like salesman bafflegab. I was
someone was hoping to tell me if there was something of importance
behind it, and what it was.

For example Wikipedi says "Cloud computing is a style of computing in
which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are
provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge
of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in
the cloud" that supports them."

I have heard almost those same words use to sell hundreds of products.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
~ Charles Darwin.

 

[David Segall]

Is "cloud computing" a meaningless marketing buzzword or is there
something substantial behind it? Sun keeps sending me Vip-commercials
for it (Vip was a fictitious product accidentally and generically
advertised in the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie Lover Come Back).

I would like to compose an entry in the Java Glossary. What should I
say?

You may have already rejected it but I found the Sun "Guide to Getting
Started with Cloud Computing"
<http://www.sun.com/offers/details/cloud_computing_primer.html>
helpful. The are several of the twenty six pages that you could delete
because they are only pushing Sun's offerings in the field but I
thought the remainder was a useful primer.

 

[Tom Anderson]

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:49:54 -0700, Roedy Green

Is "cloud computing" a meaningless marketing buzzword or is there
something substantial behind it?

To me, the defining aspect of "cloud computing" is that I don't have
control over my data.

That's only the case if you give up control over your data. If you want
control, keep it. [...]

That is very often impossible.

As I noted already, the term "cloud computing" is poorly-defined. But the
current popular usage, as opposed to a more formalized description (as found
on Wikipedia for example), is generally concerning such user applications as
web email, social networking sites, blogging sites, newsgroup portals, photo
album sites, etc.

What? That's not what cloud computing means in the slightest.

This is because most of the people using the term are the end-users, not
the system architects, developers, and admins, with their own point of
view.

I have never heard anyone use the term 'cloud computing' to refer to any
of those things, end-user, developer, salesman, priest, nobody. Could you
point me at some examples of its use to mean that?

tom

 

[Arved Sandstrom]

You may have already rejected it but I found the Sun "Guide to Getting
Started with Cloud Computing"
<http://www.sun.com/offers/details/cloud_computing_primer.html>
helpful. The are several of the twenty six pages that you could delete
because they are only pushing Sun's offerings in the field but I
thought the remainder was a useful primer.

I agree - I've read it myself. I thought it was a pretty reasonable
description.

AHS

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Is "cloud computing" a meaningless marketing buzzword or is there
something substantial behind it?

Absolutely.

You will see a lot of solutions being hosted in the cloud
in the next decade.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Industry is always looking for new buzzwords. Cloud Computing came out
of SOA and SaaS. Though the terms may change the underlying concept of
delivering software as a service is a substantial paradigm shift from
the traditional model and is here to stay.

Cloud is PaaS not SaaS.

So it may be called something else in a few years time but it's worth
investing time into learning about it now. I guess the most prominent
branded products in this area are Google's App Engine, Amazon's services
and Windows Azure.

Yup.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

That said, IMHO the Wikipedia article gives the phrase far too much
technical detail as compared to how it's actually used by most people I
hear. The more popular, less rigorous definition seems to be simply any
kind of user/client application that would traditionally run entirely on
a workstation, but which instead has been implemented as a client/server
application.

In that usage, the key identifying feature is that the primary storage
and manipulation of the user's data is on the server, while the
client-side portion of the application is simply some kind of view onto
the server state. Most often (at least in the popular context), that
"view" is implemented using HTML and related technologies (e.g. browser
scripting, CSS, etc.).

That is not cloud computing.

That is thin client, client-server etc..

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

As I noted already, the term "cloud computing" is poorly-defined. But
the current popular usage, as opposed to a more formalized description
(as found on Wikipedia for example), is generally concerning such user
applications as web email, social networking sites, blogging sites,
newsgroup portals, photo album sites, etc.

That is not cloud computing.

That is web 2.0.

Different buzzword.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Well, one person in particular who promulgates that usage is Leo
Laporte, who has just enough tech skills to generate a following among
the pop culture of tech. Unfortunately for the purposes of this forum,
the references are nearly all as audio recordings without transcripts,
but they are there. Here's one example:
http://twit.tv/twil16

Related to Laporte's content business is a blog article here:
http://extweeme.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/so-this-is-real-life/

Does not define cloud computing.

See "3. Cloud-based end-user applications" here:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/web-20-and-cloud-computing.html#definitions

Does not agree with you.

Cloud-based end-user applications != the cloud itself

Or the lead paragraph for this article:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/hosted_apps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208700713

Agrees with Tom's definition - it is the cloud that hosts apps - not the
apps being the cloud.

Here's Richard Stallman's take on the contemporary usage of the term:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

Distinguishes between cloud and web 2.0 apps.

Check out Google's Eric Schmidt description:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=369

His:

<quote>
It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture
should be on servers. We call it cloud computing – they should be in a
‘cloud’ somewhere.
</quote>

could be interpreted as if cloud was just server computing.

But it could just as easily be interpreted otherwise and given
who he is, then I am sure it was meant otherwise.

In http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064052938160.htm
he is more technical and here it is clear that the cloud is the
platform not the apps.

That's just to name a few examples.

It is examples.

But it is not really examples of what you claim it to be.

Arne

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Industry is always looking for new buzzwords. Cloud Computing came out
of SOA and SaaS. Though the terms may change the underlying concept of
delivering software as a service is a substantial paradigm shift from
the traditional model and is here to stay.

So it may be called something else in a few years time but it's worth
investing time into learning about it now. I guess the most prominent
branded products in this area are Google's App Engine, Amazon's services
and Windows Azure.

And it all means nothing if you don't have the bandwidth to use it.
I have a 3Mb/s links and it's painful to try and use it for running most
apps. Just try and do a bit of video editing in cloud-land...

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Tom Anderson]

And it all means nothing if you don't have the bandwidth to use it. I
have a 3Mb/s links and it's painful to try and use it for running most
apps. Just try and do a bit of video editing in cloud-land...

A fine example of an app that really isn't suitable for being cloud-based!

Well, not like that. You could imagine a system for doing video editing
where the high-def raw video lived on a server, and you, the editor, just
got low-res rough copy, then you did the editing with that locally, and
transmitted what i believe is called an 'edit decision list' back to the
server, which did the full-size compositing. Not good enough for
high-quality film or proper TV work, but very useful for journalism, where
speed and mobility are of the essence.

Anyway, that would be cloudable.

tom

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

A fine example of an app that really isn't suitable for being cloud-based!

Well, not like that. You could imagine a system for doing video editing
where the high-def raw video lived on a server, and you, the editor,
just got low-res rough copy, then you did the editing with that locally,
and transmitted what i believe is called an 'edit decision list' back to
the server, which did the full-size compositing. Not good enough for
high-quality film or proper TV work, but very useful for journalism,
where speed and mobility are of the essence.

Anyway, that would be cloudable.

Every few years the industry tries and sells "The Mainframe" under a
different guise. This is just the latest version. It will have a niche
appeal, but I don't see it as being any kind of revolution.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

And it all means nothing if you don't have the bandwidth to use it.
I have a 3Mb/s links and it's painful to try and use it for running most
apps.

If you have a slow connection to the internet then hosting apps used
by internal users in the cloud is not good, but hosting apps used
by external users in the cloud will be very good.

Arne

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

If you have a slow connection to the internet then hosting apps used
by internal users in the cloud is not good, but hosting apps used
by external users in the cloud will be very good.

Arne

Somehow I don't think the bandwidth of my net connection will ever match
that of my HDD

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Somehow I don't think the bandwidth of my net connection will ever match
that of my HDD

Most likely not.

But so what.

The users of your brilliant web app may still find it faster to connect
to Google or Amazon than to your server, if you have a slow connection.

Arne

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Most likely not.

But so what.

The users of your brilliant web app may still find it faster to connect
to Google or Amazon than to your server, if you have a slow connection.

Not if their connection is as slow as mine.
So, what cloud apps do you think will prosper?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[David Segall]

And it all means nothing if you don't have the bandwidth to use it.
I have a 3Mb/s links and it's painful to try and use it for running most
apps. Just try and do a bit of video editing in cloud-land...

Cloud computing is not aimed at routine client-server applications
although it may provide an inexpensive way of hosting them. It is
intended for applications that need large amounts of processing and/or
storage. Your link is all that is needed to transfer the image of a
person coming up your drive to Amazon's servers where it can be
processed against terabytes of images and return a short biography of
your visitor before they ring the door bell.