So cloud computing. Moving on the web, who needs desktop application, lets head back to the golden age, when a server was a server, and a terminal was a terminal.
I don’t know, I’ve never been the fan of the put everything in the browser and “fly me to the clouds” movement, for several reasons. First, in my opinion the web browser is called browser and not “advanced data manipulation and browsing and knitting interface” for a reason.
The second is that well, if you put everything in the cloud, what do you do when it starts to rain? Dare Obasanjo certainly has a point that a 99.9% uptime means almost 9 hours of downtime a year. Some posts are not really using the same math as I do, they calculate with a worse service level, and that completely undermines the complaint (99% uptime means almost 88 hours of downtime a year, so 6 hours is not that bad). And if you are here, go and read Om Malik’s opinion, he has a long post on the topic.
So, Amazon is promising almost 9 hours of downtime. If that 9 hours happen to arrive on a quiet Sunday – or over several quiet Sundays – then it’s no problem really.
But what do you do if that 9 hours drive accross the last day of a critical project phase?
I like the idea of cloud computing, and I don’t want to say that you should not use Amazon S3, or Zoho or GoogleDoc, or whatever service you are using. I just would like to know what will happen to your service when the cloud gets dark?
On LinkedIn there was a question on why people want technical documentation in PDF, on paper, in Word, when all information can be put on internal wikis, blogs, etc. Most of the answers pointed to the neccessity to reach the things offline.
And not only when the server goes down. Interesting thing I read on JibberJobber, LinkedIn for example does not have a backup of your profile. If it disappears for whatever reason, you are toast. Have to start from scratch. That’s a good reason to save all your contacts, and your profile on your PC regularly – i.e. whenever there is a change.
Internet access is not 100% around the world, and the internet does not have 100% uptime. Bits go down regularly. I bet there are a couple intranets down even right now. Also there are 3 things in life that are certain: death, taxes and data loss.
I don’t talk against cloud computing – who am I to talk against it anyway -, I just want to point out that when you go near the clouds, you better have an umbrella, just in case.
- Desktop or Web
- Cloud computing brings us rain
- Cloud computing in a bunker
- Take a walk on Cloud Avenue
I think S3 just have to learn from last week's downtime and build in more redundancy & distributed servers (mirrored data). Many web apps do now use Google gears for offline backup purposes.The same worries happen on business networks where data is stored centrally anyway and the server needs upgrading, or suffers an error or some kind.And the number of laptops containing sensitive unencrypted data being left on trains tends to prove the fat client model has its own problems.At least with cloud computing very large numbers of load balanced & distributed servers is possible. No doubt these are the first tentative baby steps in this area and mistakes will and are being made.We're only human after all.
I agree. That's why I don't say that cloud computing should be away, but the continuous “we don't need offline!” rally cries are a bit premature I think.
I keep a lot of stuff online, but the important bits are stored offline too. Placing all your money in one pot is not a good survival tactic. Just look at the squirrels – they have several caches of food in case one is found.
But some people push the “only the cloud” agenda a bit too aggressively I think.
Lol-yes those fiendish and wily squirrels have a lot to teach us. I think the desperation to replace the desktop OS and to have an 'always on' data source for increasingly mobile workers is, you're right, slightly hyping cloud computing as an answer before it's ready and tested.
Agreed. Its a bit premature, but we have to start somewhere. The current incarnation of cloud apps solves problems in certain well defined areas, but not all, and has its vulnerabilities.
But traditional apps in the traditional environment have their limitations and risks too, as emsquared pointed out.
I agree with you Roland – we need an umbrella – but its not too hard to imagine a future where the cloud *is* reliable, and we stop thinking about it – like electricity.
[...] has been some problems with cloud computing, from the day when S3 went down, to the day when I flew to London. On the former I have shared my thoughts, but what reinforced my [...]