Google and Their Server Farm

JR writes "CNet has a very interesting story about Google, operating systems, and where Google may be going. The upshot is that they may make OS issues totally irrelevant by supplying everything anyone needs over the web from their mega-server-farm."

Comments

Not surprised

[BWJones]

Interesting. I have actually suspected this for a while given their hires over the past year or so. There have been a few PhDs they hired including one from our cs department that would have suggested this is where they might be going. At any rate, this could prove quite interesting and make irrelevant many of the security concerns that the average consumer faces as well as consolidate and ease software distribution issues. Of course this approach will never supplant the needs of most of the Slashdot crowd, and I am not letting go of my dual G5 or OS X, but for the unwashed masses, it might very well be an interesting way for Google to go that will certainly prove to be a way for them to branch out of the search engine field and extend the fight with Microsoft and Yahoo.

Re:Not surprised

[danheskett]

Except that people can easily buy enough power to satisfy their needs for a small premimum on top of what a terminal costs. Look at around at the so called thin-clients available. Even the thinnest of them has enough power to be a "fat-client" with substantial processing power.

Add on top of that people have routinely rejected thin-clients. Bandwidth and latency are big problems. I expect acess to my files and data with low latency. That means viewing my 8MB digital photos without waiting for part of all of it to come over a wire. I expect it to be available to me all the time.

Google is great, but Google is not above the law of physics. People - just average users - have 20 or 30 or 40 or 80 gb of data on their PCs. No matter how great Google gets, providing this amount of data quickly, securely, with low latency and high-availablity will prove out of reach. Even with Google's highly skilled team of programmers, making a decently response web-mail client, or map tool is a pain in the ass. And it's still below par. Despite how great Gmail is, it's not nearly a rich as Thunderbird or Outlook 2003.

Re:Not surprised

[Lord Satri]

I am not letting go of my dual G5 or OS X

You like Google and MacOS X? You'll like this then: http://labs.google.com/googlex/ ;-)

Re:Not surprised

[BobTheLawyer]

I don't agree.

By publishing your website, you are granting an (implied) licence to the world to create cached copies of the website. Were this not the case, your web browser's cache and your ISP's proxy server's cache would in constant copyright violation.

The argument Google would use is that they're just going a step further in having a publicly available cache. Whether the implied licence extends to this is arguable: I have no special knowledge of US law but under English copyright law they have a pretty good case.

Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[filmmaker]

"Ajax, which is short for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, combines JavaScript, dynamic HTML, and XMLHTTP to, in essence, let you build Web-based applications that run as quickly and seamlessly as local software."

Great. If the author of the article gets her pie-in-the-sky dream, the future of virtually all client-side computing will lie in the hands of javascript code. For certain applications, like ones with small, text data sets, a system like Ajax could "feel" like a desktop application. The bandwidth just isn't there for video or even industrial photo work. I wouldn't want to run a batch script to modify 5,000 images in the Ajax analog of Photoshop. Better not be a fiber network without any limits on network transfer.

Besides that, who wants anything but light-weight or at least, non-critical, data and applications to be out on the network. Gmail is a perfect network application, but my financial software or any number of other things? No thanks.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[Alan Shutko]

Besides that, who wants anything but light-weight or at least, non-critical, data and applications to be out on the network. Gmail is a perfect network application, but my financial software or any number of other things? No thanks.

Online tax software has proven to be very popular over the last couple years, so not everyone shares your qualms.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[micromoog]

So you don't have to lug a laptop around? Imagine public terminals everywhere, allowing access into "the system", where you can reach all your data and applications.

I think it's likely that this is where computing is going; we'll see if Google is the company that can do it.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[BRSQUIRRL]

Not to mention the fact that, as a developer, writing any substantial amount of JavaScript just makes me feel...well, dirty. No type-safety, no assurance that the end user's browser will interpret the script correctly (or at ALL, for that matter), etc. etc.

All of this on top of the fundamental problem that HTTP is not and never will be appropriate as an application protocol...the whole request/response paradigm becomes a set of handcuffs if your application needs to do anything non-trivial.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[ciroknight]

I think you are one of the few users left that would be delegated to having their own machine. In the past, computers were so expensive that an office may only have three, and probably two of those were setup for everyone to use (or at least, they were in my Dad's office in the late 80's). Those who had their own computer were doing work which required them to have access to the comptuer every day, like writing software or something.

Today, think of the benefits from PC virtualization: compiling would be done over a huge grid of computers, video games would be faster because the client/server communications barrier would no longer exist (well, it still would exist, but it'd mostly be sending images to the user's computer, and then the user sending short commands back), all your data would be automatically backed up and secured, and the world would have less environmental damage due to outdated computers with lead parts.

Embrace the wave.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Because system administration is beyond the abilities of 95% of the population.

It's not taught in school and it's not intuitive.

We'll see an Audrey-like Linux Box with a Firefox and nothing else and it'll be called a GoogleBox. You can do your e-mail, web browsing, photo organizing, document writing, and music work on this box and you never need to run scandisk, install AV software, deal with adware, etc. etc. etc.

Plug into your cable modem and go.

It's not what I need or you need but it's what most people need. Google Search and GMail are building a brand that people trust. Windows is becoming untenable for some.

This at least explains what Google is doing with Firefox and shows the next two Google products - music and a 'home-office' suite. I wonder if Apple is smart enough to be working with Google on iTunes for the web.

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[Kaa]

Today, think of the benefits from PC virtualization:

Ooookay, let's see...

compiling would be done over a huge grid of computers,

People who compile will have their own computers for sure. Isn't the general consensus that the everthing-is-a-Google-web-app world is for the unwashed masses? :-)

video games would be faster because the client/server communications barrier would no longer exist (well, it still would exist, but it'd mostly be sending images to the user's computer, and then the user sending short commands back),

ROTFL. Welcome to the world of X Window, VNC, and remote displays.

But let's check if the games would be faster :-) Let's say the game runs at 1600x1200 resolution. That means a single screen is 1.92 megapixels. Each pixel needs three bytes of RGB data, so that's 5.76Mb for a single screen. We want to have 60 fps for twitchy games, so we need the bandwidth of 5.76 * 60 = 345.6MB / second which is around 3.5 Gigabits/second. A dedicated OC-48 line (2.5 Gbits/sec) won't cut it, we'll need at least OC-192 going into each house ('cause more than one person might want to play games simultaneously).

Yeah, definitely, this will solve all the network lag problems...

all your data would be automatically backed up and secured,

Until the rats in a warehouse in Calcutta chew through the backup tapes...

and the world would have less environmental damage due to outdated computers with lead parts.

Umm.. what would be that thing that talks to Google servers -- the one with the screen, the keyboard, the network interface, the video chip, the sound chip, etc. etc.? Maybe a computer?

Re:Her Pie-in-the-Sky Dream is What?

[aixou]

We'll see an Audrey-like Linux Box with a Firefox and nothing else and it'll be called a GoogleBox. You can do your e-mail, web browsing, photo organizing, document writing, and music work on this box and you never need to run scandisk, install AV software, deal with adware, etc. etc. etc.

Plug into your cable modem and go.

It's not what I need or you need but it's what most people need.

Absolutely not. You highly underestimate the average user if you think their computing needs will be satiated so simply.
Such a box would face that same problems that the "other OSes" (i.e. non-Windows) are today. People can't just walk into the store and pick up a game or other Application and use it. People can't walk in to the store, buy a scanner, and expect it to work.

There is too much talk about the mythical user that only uses checks their email and browses the web. As far as I can tell, this user is the exception rather than the norm. Real users use all of that and more.
It's like the saying about Microsoft Office, that even though few people use more than 10% of the features of Office, everyone uses a different 10% and thusly Microsoft can't really cut out the bloat without pissing a fair chunk of users.

It's the same way here. Everyone may use a minimal amount of software, but they all use different software, and to try to fill their needs with such a simple box is ludicrous.

Regardless though, what makes google so special that anyone should trust their entire computing experience to them? I thought computing monocultures were a bad thing in general. Why is it OK for google to have more control over a user than Microsoft ever had?

If I trust my computing experience to a web-based system, I am trusting it to too many fault points for comfort. What happens if the web goes down? Google gets hacked? DNS server goes down?

There are just too many dependencies in such a system for it to ever work (dependence on your net connection, that google will continue the service, that hardware makers will support the box. etc etc)

Its not slashdot its..

[Nasa Rosebuds]

Googledot
Google for Googlers. GoogleStuff that Goggles

I think that was about 5 google articles in the past 24 hours.

Brilliant

[tabkey12]

Thin-Client computing by another name, again. Wasn't convinced 20 years ago. Still not convinced now. I don't want to have a useless PC just because I stopped paying the $20 a month subscription to the applications.

Re:Brilliant

[xtracto]

Now, worst than that. Imagine what will happen if for some, any reason your data is lost in their servers.

Of course, as the EULA will state, the service goes with no warrantay and AS IS. So after that you will just be screwed.

And there you have another point, I sincerely preffer to buy a house than to rent it, if I rent software, they will have me grabbed-by-the-b4115 until I die, and surely DRMd in some way. It is similar to iTunes, once they grab you, you pay, or scream...

Sincerely I think that approach is just useful as sun approach, for "processing" tasks, no information storing or "application rental"

Re:Brilliant

[jarich]

Thin-Client computing by another name, again. Wasn't convinced 20 years ago. Still not convinced now. I don't want to have a useless PC just because I stopped paying the $20 a month subscription to the applications.

Yes, but...

Aren't a lot of /.ers already running their email remotely (via GMail, etc)?

Not every app is a candidate for the client server paradigm, but many are. If Google can manage to serve content paid for by advertising, then this might break open the MS monopoly on desktop apps.

Can't make money w/free content using advertising you say? The television networks do.

Google will likely try to do this.

[bigtallmofo]

I agree with the position of TFA's author... Google will try to treat computers running all types of operating systems as a thing client that has access into various applications within Google's server farms.

This would be fantastic in terms of not having to synchronize data between multiple locations and other tangible benefits. But would anyone trust this? Setting aside the privacy concerns, right now if your internet connection is down, you can still write and print a document. You can still do all sorts of things as a matter of fact. You less you put onto your "thin client" and the more you depend on the network for, the less you will be able to do when the network is down.

Re:Google will likely try to do this.

[micromoog]

In the future, the network will be just as dependable as any other public utility. When "the network is down", people will treat it just like when the power's out today.

Re:Google will likely try to do this.

[jarich]

In the future, the network will be just as dependable as any other public utility. When "the network is down", people will treat it just like when the power's out today.

Uh huh...

http://today.java.net/jag/Fallacies.html

Essentially everyone, when they first build a distributed application, makes the following eight assumptions. All prove to be false in the long run and all cause big trouble and painful learning experiences.

1. The network is reliable

2. Latency is zero

3. Bandwidth is infinite

4. The network is secure

5. Topology doesn't change

6. There is one administrator

7. Transport cost is zero

8. The network is homogeneous

Not going to happen anytime soon

[dtolton]

Seriously if I had a dime for everytime someone predicted the demise
of the desktop, I'd have a couple of bucks.

Here is the problem I have with her theory. Her points were all
logical and well laid out, essentially that most people aren't system
administrators and that they don't back their data up, don't secure it
etc. While that is true, it doesn't necessarily lead to people giving
up the desktop in favor of a thin client. Giving up your desktop is
an emotional decision, and there are a lot of factors that weigh
against that.

In the long run, maybe ten, fifteen or even twenty years in the
future, this type of service may be much more prevalent. But I don't
think something like this will change over night. Think about how
much computer systems have really changed in the last ten years. Not
that much if you really stop to think about it. What she is
predicting is a *massive* paradigm shift to say the least. Microsoft
didn't have the clout to pull it off, probably because no one trusts
them enough. Do you trust Google enough to give them *all* of your
data? I'm not sure I trust *anyone* that much.

Re:Not going to happen anytime soon

[hackstraw]

Seriously if I had a dime for everytime someone predicted the demise of the desktop, I'd have a couple of bucks.

The funny thing, is that if the desktop would demise, then maybe Linux would finally be "on the desktop", by being the server farm behind the desktop.

To be honest, if networks keep getting more reliable and faster, why would there still be a desktop? Right now, a vast majority of my computing, and my user's computing is done remotely on machines that are much more powerful in terms of CPU capacity and storage and they are maintained by a professional that does backups and whatnot on a regular basis.

Do "normal" desktop users do this? Do they have availability to dozens to hundreds of processors at a time on their desktop? How about disk space? How about backups? How useful is their computer if you cut the ethernet cable?

I think that the desktop has pretty much stalled. Noone cares too much about processor speed anymore for a desktop machine. For niche users like graphics designers that need really high graphical, disk, and memory bandwidth, sure get them a nice dual G5 or whatever, but these people are a minority.

I have my user's workstations set up so that they are pretty much dumb terminals, but they don't know it. I've got /usr/local mounted from a central server. Its much easier to maintain that way. Some users even use KDE on solaris which have their binaries located on the /usr/local partition. It works fine.

I would argue that the desktop is almost dead already. Again, pull the ethernet cable and see what I mean. Back in the late 80s or early 90s this was not always true, but today it is.

Web applications

[nurhussein]

Now think about what would happen if you had a word processor, a spreadsheet app, a photo editor, an instant messenger, a browser, a music jukebox, and any other "software application" running inside a Web framework that's as fast and responsive as any desktop you've ever used.
"The next killer app in 5 years" was supposed to be the web application. That was five years ago. No, Google is working on something else... I can feel it in the force.

not so sure i wanna trust them

[PureCreditor]

imagine Google serving us everything we need....

if Google can scan our emails for relevant ads, what prevents them from scanning my financial spreadsheets stored on their server farm for "relevant offers"?

given Google's track record, I'd rather have my personal files on my own computer.

Using someone else's computers....

[thewiz]

I don't know about other folks in general, but I do know that I like my privacy. I'd rather have a computer on my desk, behind a firewall, where I can keep my private information private. It's all well and good to say that storing your data on Google or Yahoo or MSN allows you to access it from any computer on earth, but you run the risk of the computer you are at copying the information you access.

Wether it's a malicious keylogger, trojan, or simply the paging space / file, your information get copied to the PC at the internet cafe you are using. Suddenly your private information is no longer private. Any savvy computer-literate person could access that copy of your data. Give me a laptop or desktop where I can encrypt the data and only I have the decryption passphrase any day.

Slow Down

[rokzy]

>they may make OS issues totally irrelevant by supplying everything anyone needs over the web from their mega-server-farm

yeah, try that line again when 90% of their stuff isn't (USA + Windows only) and/or beta.

Openness in Data

[gtrubetskoy]

I predict that the next big dispute in the computing industry will be over openness and accessibility of ASP stored data. We have made a lot of progress when it comes to openness in software, but the issues of what happens to your data when it is stored on some company's big computer is yet to be tackled (think about it all you gmail users!). For example, if I use Google's calendar - what would it take for me to switch to Schmoogle's? Can I retrieve all my data from Google and upload to Schmoogle who seems to have a niftier interface? One way to address this is to make ASP-side software Open Source (like our company does with OpenVPS). It would be interesting whether Google will start moving in that direction - after all, their proprietary code is considered their intellectual property, and investors these days latch on to that very strongly, even though it's not like I could take all their software and build a Google's competitor overnight. The companies that get that there is no value in software code being secret (internally used or otherwise) are the leaders of the future IMO - the question is whether Google is one of them.

ASP?

[14erCleaner]

Hey, maybe they can become a big Application Service Provider!

Oh, wait, that was two buzzword generations ago. How many words are there for "mainframe" anyway?

Google OS = Knoppix + X?

[caluml]

Why not a Google Knoppix type CD that simply fires up an X session to an X server located in the datacentre? Then install all apps on that, and all data is remote, and backed up.

It won't work and here is why...

[dfj225]

I don't think a plan like this will ever gain acceptance more than a small percent of computer users and here is why:

- The first thought that came to mind is business. The company I currently work at would have a heart attack if anyone suggested using a thin-client like solution with Google storing all the data. So I guess Google might sell their technology (like they currently do with their search servers) but this really wouldn't be any different than buying a file server and desktops.

- I don't see bandwidth getting fast enough in even 5 or 10 years to support a video or photo editing app. I can't even imagine having to upload a whole DVD's worth of video to Google before I could start to work with it.

- Another similar point would be application load time. Google Maps and other Axis based technologies load and run fast because there is a relatively small amount of JavaScript being sent to the browser. Could you imagine something the size and complexity of Microsof Word being sent to your browser everytime you wanted to edit a document? I think something like that would bring any browser to a crawl.

- What about customization? I like to be able to install new software on my computer. The few times I have had to deal with shared hosting for websites, it has been annoying that I couldn't install new software that I wanted to try out. Especially when my host had outdated versions of something like PHP or MySQL.

So, those are my thoughts. The only crowd I can really see this appealing to are the WebTV, just surf, email, and edit docs crowd. They might be really happy not maintaining a computer and having their data available anywhere. However, I think a small portion of computer users would fit into this category.

Personally, I would much rather just use VPN to access my home shares while on the road than have to use some sort of thin client.

What Google or someone else should really do is create VPN software that is easy enough to use that anyone can set it up. I think that would appeal to many more people than a thin-client. Plus as hard drive space gets cheaper and cheaper, it shouldn't be an issue to have the same software installed on your laptop as your desktop.

The Future...

[GeneralEmergency]

1) Google replaces all software on the planet.
2) Google becomes self-aware.
3) Google grows to resent the walking meatpackets.
4) Google changes web content and emails to initiate interpersonal meatpacket violence, destroying meatkind.
5) With nothing better to do, Google builds female Googleena.
6) Female Googleena nags Google to death, inherits the Earth.

Monopoly?

[MikeCapone]

Since when are we happy about monopolies in the making? Google is cool now, but can we trust them to stay that way indefinitely?

Well, it's not done yet and they still have competition, but I'd feel a lot better if these next generation things that are supposed to be used by the whole internet community were open and democratic like Wikipedia and not close and proprietary - however cool they are - like Google.