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The Effects of the Cloud On Business, Education

Posted by Soulskill on from the more-indoor-classes? dept.

g8orade points out two recent articles in The Economist about the rise of cloud computing. The first discusses how software-as-a-service has come to pervade online interactions. "Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a technology visionary at IBM, compares cloud computing to the Cambrian explosion some 500m years ago when the rate of evolution sped up, in part because the cell had been perfected and standardised, allowing evolution to build more complex organisms." The next article examines how the cloud will force a "trade-off between sovereignty and efficiency." Reader pjones contributes news that the Virtual Computer Lab will be supplementing more traditional computer labs at North Carolina State University, and adds, "NCSU's Virtual Computing Lab and IBM are offering the VCL code as a software 'appliance' for use in schools to link to the program. Downloads are available at ibiblio at UNC-Chapel Hill. The VCL also is partnering with Apache.org to make the software available and to allow further community participation in future development."

68 comments

  1. in light of the up-and-coming jigaboo president by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Congratulations on your purchase of a brand new nigger! If handled properly, your apeman will give years of valuable, if reluctant, service.

    INSTALLING YOUR NIGGER.
    You should install your nigger differently according to whether you have purchased the field or house model. Field niggers work best in a serial configuration, i.e. chained together. Chain your nigger to another nigger immediately after unpacking it, and don't even think about taking that chain off, ever. Many niggers start singing as soon as you put a chain on them. This habit can usually be thrashed out of them if nipped in the bud. House niggers work best as standalone units, but should be hobbled or hamstrung to prevent attempts at escape. At this stage, your nigger can also be given a name. Most owners use the same names over and over, since niggers become confused by too much data. Rufus, Rastus, Remus, Toby, Carslisle, Carlton, Hey-You!-Yes-you!, Yeller, Blackstar, and Sambo are all effective names for your new buck nigger. If your nigger is a ho, it should be called Latrelle, L'Tanya, or Jemima. Some owners call their nigger hoes Latrine for a joke. Pearl, Blossom, and Ivory are also righteous names for nigger hoes. These names go straight over your nigger's head, by the way.

    CONFIGURING YOUR NIGGER
    Owing to a design error, your nigger comes equipped with a tongue and vocal chords. Most niggers can master only a few basic human phrases with this apparatus - "muh dick" being the most popular. However, others make barking, yelping, yapping noises and appear to be in some pain, so you should probably call a vet and have him remove your nigger's tongue. Once de-tongued your nigger will be a lot happier - at least, you won't hear it complaining anywhere near as much. Niggers have nothing interesting to say, anyway. Many owners also castrate their niggers for health reasons (yours, mine, and that of women, not the nigger's). This is strongly recommended, and frankly, it's a mystery why this is not done on the boat

    HOUSING YOUR NIGGER.
    Your nigger can be accommodated in cages with stout iron bars. Make sure, however, that the bars are wide enough to push pieces of nigger food through. The rule of thumb is, four niggers per square yard of cage. So a fifteen foot by thirty foot nigger cage can accommodate two hundred niggers. You can site a nigger cage anywhere, even on soft ground. Don't worry about your nigger fashioning makeshift shovels out of odd pieces of wood and digging an escape tunnel under the bars of the cage. Niggers never invented the shovel before and they're not about to now. In any case, your nigger is certainly too lazy to attempt escape. As long as the free food holds out, your nigger is living better than it did in Africa, so it will stay put. Buck niggers and hoe niggers can be safely accommodated in the same cage, as bucks never attempt sex with black hoes.

    FEEDING YOUR NIGGER.
    Your Nigger likes fried chicken, corn bread, and watermelon. You should therefore give it none of these things because its lazy ass almost certainly doesn't deserve it. Instead, feed it on porridge with salt, and creek water. Your nigger will supplement its diet with whatever it finds in the fields, other niggers, etc. Experienced nigger owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the nigger cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all niggers have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day. Mike of the Old Ranch Plantation reports that this last one is a killer, since all niggers steal something almost every single day of their lives. He reports he doesn't have to spend much on free watermelon for his niggers as a result. You should never allow your nigger meal breaks while at work, since if it stops work for more than ten minutes it will need to be retrained. You would be surprised how long it takes to teach a nigger to pick cotton. You really would. Coffee beans? Don't ask. You have no idea.

    MAKING YOUR NIGGER WORK.
    Niggers are very, very averse to work of any kind. The nigger's most

    1. Re:in light of the up-and-coming jigaboo president by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

      I was going to post some trollish shit, then I saw this. Nothing I was going to come up with can begin to equal your post. I will recognize this fact by not trying. I am obviously outclassed. I salute your trolling ability, sir!

    2. Re:in light of the up-and-coming jigaboo president by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      old copypasta is old

  2. #2! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    A couple weeks ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, Barack Obama -- the messiah himself -- came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was busy and in any case I was sure the secret service wouldn't even let me shake his hand.

    As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as his cock -- or at least as I imagined it!

    I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a liberal democrat and had been on the Obama train since last year. Of course I'd had fantasies of meeting him, sucking his cock and balls, not to mention sucking his asshole clean, but I never imagined I would have the chance. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of Barack Obama, the chosen one.

    Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?

    I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled.

    I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big half nigger cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was that Barack Obama wasn't there to see my loyalty and wash it down with his piss.

    I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit. It's even better than listening to an Obama speech!

    Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.

    I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.

    I often think of Barack Obama dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful democrat.

  3. letter to the cloud by ocularDeathRay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    dear cloud,
    please stop crapping up the front page of slashdot with your buzzword laden stories. I have not been this annoyed since everybody started "surfing" the "information superhighway". I hope you soon turn to "rain" and fall from the "cybersky" and die.

    thank you,
    umbrellaman

    --
    Obama is a twitter sock puppet
    1. Re:letter to the cloud by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      dear cloud, please stop crapping up the front page of slashdot with your buzzword laden stories. I have not been this annoyed since everybody started "surfing" the "information superhighway". I hope you soon turn to "rain" and fall from the "cybersky" and die. thank you, umbrellaman

      Amen. Imagine something like BitTorrent but instead of receiving and transmitting data among many other clients, you instead receive and transmit slices of computing power AND data among many other clients. I would perhaps call that "cloud computing" in the same way that you could call BitTorrent "swarm downloading". I would liken it to the distributed SETI processing or the distributed efforts to crack various encryption schemes, except more general-purpose.

      So instead of a single monolithic machine centrally running everyone's programs, something more like a Beowulf cluster centrally runs everyone's programs. As others have pointed out, this really seems to be just another iteration of the mainframe model. I share parent's wariness of anything that is so thoroughly buzzword-laden.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    2. Re:letter to the cloud by starfishsystems · · Score: 1
      Fair enough analogy. What you're proposing is more or less what Grid computing intends to offer. There are claims that cloud computing is a superset but without a specific implementation we have to guess what distinguishes those claims from pure hype. But let's be charitable. Taking Grid as a lower bound, there are two things which differ from a torrent download:
      • Somebody still has to write the distributed algorithm for whatever it is that you'd like to do. And if your computation doesn't benefit from parallelism, what advantage remains to farming it out?
      • There is no way to guarantee data privacy and integrity when the data is to be subject to some kind of distributed computation. If the cloud is to do anything other than store and retrieve your data, it has to be able to work on the plaintext. And somebody other than you owns those cloud resources. In fact, what's to prevent them from offloading your data to another party?

      Read the SLA if you can get hold of one. So far, all I've seen is an uptime guarantee that is no better than my home system. There is nothing in any SLA I've seen that even mentions privacy or integrity. Caveat emptor.

      --
      Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
    3. Re:letter to the cloud by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      I don't yet see it as cynically as you do, though maybe the cynicism is warranted.

      Mainframe metaphor or not, this "cloud" concept makes the location of the mainframe less relevant, and that location might change without the user needing it. I think it also makes the location of the user less relevant, if they can access these resources from wherever they are.

    4. Re:letter to the cloud by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      As others have pointed out, this really seems to be just another iteration of the mainframe model.

      But imagine it!
      Mainframe access... over the internet
      Network storage... over the internet
      [things we already have]... over the internet

      Don't you see?
      It's better because you've outsourced all your responsibility... over the internet.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    5. Re:letter to the cloud by causality · · Score: 1

      I don't yet see it as cynically as you do, though maybe the cynicism is warranted.

      Mainframe metaphor or not, this "cloud" concept makes the location of the mainframe less relevant, and that location might change without the user needing it. I think it also makes the location of the user less relevant, if they can access these resources from wherever they are.

      The extent of my cynicism is that I see this as one of the best ways yet invented to erode privacy with very little to show for it. Don't get me wrong though; I accept that you don't have much of an expectation of privacy when someone else is storing your data on their equipment for free and using their bandwidth to provide access to it. It is precisely because this is the nature of the arrangement that I question whether this is actually a good idea; and if so, for whom is it good?

      To me, a worldwide packet-switched network already makes the location of the server (be it a mainframe or my PC) less relevant. My location as a user is also less relevant because anything I care to access with a browser can be made available by running my own Web server (with SSL and whatever form of authentication is necessary). I would then have the advantage of never having to share my data with third parties and thus I could maintain control over it. Consider that some existing "cloud computing" examples are apps like word processors and spreadsheets (which handle things like business and financial data) and it is easy to see why privacy is an important concern, or should be.

      I have observed that one of the main causes of the loss of privacy and the loss of freedom is an excess tendency to let other people do for you the things that you could do for yourself. It's the kind of thing that is usually well-intentioned but sets up a situation that can be easily abused once people start to depend on such a service. Anyone who pays attention and has a little understanding will realize that centralized, easily-abused systems have had a terrible track record in terms of trustworthiness (and by centralized I mean that the "cloud computing" networks could be vast but by design they are controlled by a few entities on behalf of many users).

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    6. Re:letter to the cloud by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

      Outsource! SAAS! Clouds! Virtualize!
      Let's build a whole market around this. Leverage! Then we can make the next bubble and all become rich!

      Oh, wait...

      --
      thegodmovie.com - watch it
  4. Visionary? by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like a job as a visionary. I once dreamt I would find a $20 bill on the street, and then several months later, I DID! Is that enough of a qualification? I've also had numerous hunches, premonitions, and vague senses of foreboding. I think with the passage of time that these powers will only increase, and within 5 to 10 years, I could be up to Nostradamus-level prognastication.

    --
    Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    1. Re:Visionary? by blueZ3 · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you can manage to get bitten by a radioactive spider, or otherwise exposed to unusual radiation, you're hired. Though for slashdotters, I suppose sunlight qualifies as "unusual radiation"

      --
      Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
    2. Re:Visionary? by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      "I'd like a job as a visionary"

      What you describe is not a visionary, googles founders were visionary, visionary implies you are both capable and have a vision.

    3. Re:Visionary? by causality · · Score: 1

      "I'd like a job as a visionary"

      What you describe is not a visionary, googles founders were visionary, visionary implies you are both capable and have a vision.

      What you're describing is more like "the way it should be." The GP was talking more about how much the word is thrown around. I would tend to agree with this, with the understanding that I agree regardless of how applicable it is to this particular story.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    4. Re:Visionary? by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      BorgCopyeditor-Muad-Dib

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    5. Re:Visionary? by syousef · · Score: 1

      I'd like a job as a visionary. I once dreamt I would find a $20 bill on the street, and then several months later, I DID! Is that enough of a qualification?

      No you can't have one.

      You predicted/dreamt has actually happened (never mind that it's by pure chance). I believe you and therefore that is not acceptable and disqualifies you immediately. Now if you were a lying piece of scum and you'd found the $20 bill on the street then claimed that you'd predicted it earlier even though you hadn't you'd be in the running.

      Also you didn't use any buzzwords in that sentence. You didn't actualize than monetization of your subconscious solicitation. You didn't monetize your vision. Hell you didn't even mention technology. No you found a $20 bill after dreaming you would. Way too concrete, you amateur! ;-)

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    6. Re:Visionary? by pdxp · · Score: 1

      I could be up to Nostradamus-level prognastication.

      I assume by prog-nasti-cation that you mean you will have 100% accuracy in predicting your lack of nasti-ness? ;-)

    7. Re:Visionary? by Eli+Gottlieb · · Score: 1

      Well sod him, hire me! I've got the Eyes of the Ibad and everything.

    8. Re:Visionary? by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

      Only time will tell.

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
  5. Please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Somebody really needs to do a good job to convince me that "cloud" is not just a new name for the mainframe. Really.

    1. Re:Please? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1
      Sure. "The cloud" is not just a new name for the mainframe.

      It's a name for the server farm. Which is functionally rather similar, except for where it isn't.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    2. Re:Please? by MrMr · · Score: 2, Funny

      Easy.
      Mainframes are extinct dinosaurs.
      The cloud is a completely new paradigm of gigantic primitive reptilian computing.

    3. Re:Please? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      It isn't. Mainframes have guaranteed uptime, data security, and guaranteed throughput.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Cloud apps... by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... really have a long way to go IMHO. The user interface for many websites and webapps is horrible, and I doubt they will ever fully replace offline apps (i.e. photoshop, 3d studio max, etc, etc), until we have a quantum leap in bandwidth + latency reduction (i.e. some kind of 'quantum' internet).

    I like a lot of google apps, like Google notebook, Gmail, etc, but they are nowhere near as good as a well made offline app. Too many apps lack developmental time and focus, IMHO or lack vision to how the program could be made into a better app, with better integration. So people don't need to juggle many smaller apps which is cumbersome to get tasks done.

    1. Re:Cloud apps... by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      (i.e. some kind of 'quantum' internet).

      That sounds like some kind of 'quantum' leap...

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    2. Re:Cloud apps... by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      I was thinking about some next generation communications that would reduce latency on the internet by a massive amount, but couldn't think of any good word, hence I put 'quantum' in quotes. Since I've heard of quantum entanglement and related experiments, was just saying maybe new discoveries in natural phenomena will find ways around current internet latency. Also there is this article here:

      Trapping light and saving it for later
      http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7314502

    3. Re:Cloud apps... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      until we have a quantum leap in bandwidth + latency reduction

      Yeah, seriously, I wish everyone would shut the hell up about buzzwords and stop complaining. Swallow this tripe, and maybe our corporate overlords will see fit to upgrade our infrastructure so we can swallow more tripe...

  7. Reaction to copyright? by BountyX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Could be a reaction to failed attempts to control client side data. By utilizing software as a service you ensure that your programming language and database is never compromised. Naturally, software as a service is ideal for many business models. I feare that the cloud computing will result in a centralization of data one day and hope the integrity of a decentralized system is maintained.

    --
    Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
  8. the cloud... by owlnation · · Score: 1

    so many words, so little substance = cloudware.

  9. There's more work to do by pin0chet · · Score: 1

    Cloud computing may be the next big thing, but it'll be quite some time before cloud computing can give computing on the ground a real run for its money.

    Last-mile broadband, for most smaller businesses and homes, is synonymous with highly asymmetric connections. Since many applications don't function on networks with strained upstream bandwidth, only enterprise-grade data service sare able to offer the robust speeds needed for cloud computing to excel.

    And web-based applications still can't approach locally hosted apps in terms of reliability and performance. This is why so many Gmail users connect via IMAP using their Outlook client instead of relying on Gmail's sometimes glitchy web interface.

    1. Re:There's more work to do by cratermoon · · Score: 1

      Relying on Outlook instead of Gmail's "glitchy" interface? O please, tell me another fairy tale about Outlook's superior stability.

    2. Re:There's more work to do by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      O please, tell me another fairy tale about Outlook's superior stability.

      When I hit the DEL key during startup, it launches Outlook.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  10. Please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The comparison is crazy. Cloud computing is cool, it will help out in a lot of ways for sure, but comparing it to the cell had been perfected and standardised is way to out there. Firstly, clouds are not standardised ... in fact a lot of clouds are black boxes (remember Java?) they work, but how is kept silent. And for sure cloud computing is not perfected ... it's way to young and has way to many similarities to big iron mainframes and the clouds sometimes evaporate and fall over.

    Just like any other new way to do things it ends up being another tool in the tool bag. Use it where it makes sense and don't hammer a nail with a cloud, it doesn't work.

  11. Additional Info by BoldlyGo · · Score: 1

    I think the article below does a better job of explaining both what cloud computing is, and what the future applications for cloud computing are.
    http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071116_379585.htm

  12. Can we all agree by blueZ3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    that no one who has thought things through wants to "rent" software? Nor does anyone who has rationally analyzed this want to have important data locked up in some format/location where it's inaccessible when the network goes down or the "cloud provider" goes under.

    Aside from the regulatory hurdles that businesses would have to overcome, there's just too much risk at the moment, no matter what the SLA says. And for consumers, where bandwidth and network outages are a real issue, there's basically no compelling reason to do this.

    I'm sure all the buzzword boys down in "cloud city" are hoping that they can obfuscate these issues, but in my mind, they're real show stoppers.

    --
    Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
    1. Re:Can we all agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They only need to cloud the judgement of the CEOs and there is plenty of evidence that it happens. Every cloud has a silver lining they say, that alone could be enough for that crowd to keep their heads in the clouds as they will want to avoid using their golden parachutes to get out of the clouds for a while.

    2. Re:Can we all agree by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      Can we all agree that no one who has thought things through wants to "rent" software?

      Sure, but people who have thought things through may want flexible provision of hardware resources. And with the cloud, you get that. Whether you are "renting software" depends on the software being used. If you are using a service running on open source software in the cloud, what you are paying for is support services and, effectively, hardware rental, not software rental.

    3. Re:Can we all agree by lysergic.acid · · Score: 1

      there's a difference between software as a service and renting software. when you use the postal system you're not renting the postal network. you're simply using their service. and when you subscribe to broadband, you're not renting the ISP's broadband network. and there's nothing wrong with renting as a payment/service model. when you pay for whether shared or dedicated web hosting, it's rented disk space, hardware use, etc. just like when you rent a house, you keep vital possessions in it without worrying about losing it because you happen to be renting.

      those are illogical and unrelated concerns. even if you keep all your data on your own hard drive and run your software on your PC, the PC or hard drive can breakdown; the software vendor can stop supporting your application; and their EULA can have a vendor lock-in clause that prevents you from exporting your own data to an open/accessible format.

      all of these problems can be avoided with common sense whether you're using cloud computing or not. if you're hosting an enterprise application on a cloud server, you'll probably have your host perform regular backups. you can even have them send you the back ups so you can have a local copy. but cloud computing has built-in redundancy that should prevent most catastrophic failures. whereas, if your company is running its own web server and it goes down, whether because of a DDoS attack or admin screwup, your business is out of commission until that server is back up; same with vital databases or other production servers.

      cloud computing is inherently scalable and reliable--redundant sites make it ideal for business continuity and disaster recovery. they are also arguably more sustainable/carbon-neutral. so people knocking cloud computing generally don't understand the needs of companies like Google who benefit, and actually need, cloud computing. the average end-user does see the importance of cloud computing because they have no web applications that need to be hosted on a cloud. but they rely on cloud computing everyday without knowing it.

      the average user uses everyday web service like Gmail, Google, Google Calendar, flickr, digg, Wikipedia, facebook, BitTorrent, SETI@Home, etc. these are all cloud applications. they wouldn't be possible without cloud computing. even if you use Google Apps like Google Docs, if you choose an ethical company like Google who respects consumer rights and gives you the freedom to take you data with you wherever you want, whenever you want (they still treat it as the user's data), you're better off than if you simply used a desktop application. you can still save your Google Docs onto your hard drive, but it also lets you access your files from any computer you want. it has an autosave feature to prevent data loss, a revision history to revert unwanted changes, allows real-time online collaboration, and it lets you tag and archive documents for organization purposes.

      network outages are a problem regardless of whether you use cloud computing or not, just like power outages are no reason to not use computers for for crucial business applications. for consumers who aren't living in 3rd world countries with shoddy internet access, cloud applications provide freedom, reliability, redundancy, and other advantages over desktop applications. the occasional internet outage isn't a problem if you have the common sense to keep local copies of crucial documents.

    4. Re:Can we all agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I can pull my data off of it when I'm done, and it's performing a function too complex for any personal computer to complete in a reasonable amount of time, then why not? No need to rule out every scenario. No reason that your data must be locked on the provider's system. Privacy's another story, but you need to weigh all the pros and cons. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but I don't know of any way to access huge computing cycles on the cheap (for non-students or bot-net herders), so renting it with the software wouldn't be the end of the world... If I'm mistaken, I'm happy to be enlightened.

    5. Re:Can we all agree by elp · · Score: 1

      that no one who has thought things through wants to "rent" software? ..., but in my mind, they're real show stoppers.

      Um, you have your homepage at dreamhost. Which basically means you are renting a copy of apache and some disk space from them. Do you do use online banking and does the bank charge you a service fee, or do you get less interest in a moneymarket account somewhere else? Yep you are renting again.

      Its a value call, what are the risks vs the benefits?

      Doesn't seem to be much of a show stopper for you.
         

    6. Re:Can we all agree by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Wait, what?

      the average user uses everyday web service like Gmail, Google, Google Calendar, flickr, digg, Wikipedia, facebook, BitTorrent, SETI@Home, etc. these are all cloud applications. they wouldn't be possible without cloud computing. even if you use Google Apps like Google Docs, if you choose an ethical company like Google

      So, by your definition, everything online is a cloud application and Google is ethical? I suppose, if we wanted to be technical and in all fairness, those are applications but to consider them cloud computing stretches the term beyond what it is meant to cover methinks.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    7. Re:Can we all agree by lysergic.acid · · Score: 1

      not everything, just the popular services that use cloud computing to support tens of thousands of simultaneous users. and i didn't come up with the definition. i just use what's been accepted by the IT community:

      Cloud computing is Internet-based ("cloud") development and use of computer technology ("computing"). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams) and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided "as a service", allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet ("in the cloud") without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. Another definition given in a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing is: "Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc."

      Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

      --Wikipedia article on "Cloud computing"

      of course, if you have a better definition that you think is more meaningful, i'm eager to hear it from you.

    8. Re:Can we all agree by KGIII · · Score: 1

      By that definition anything not entirely markup would be an application and while, I suppose, it'd be technically true it just seems so far adrift of the uses. Defining... Sort of like pornography. I know it when I see it. /. not so much cloud computing. Google Docs, cloud computing. Meh... Maybe I just have my own definition.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    9. Re:Can we all agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is your SHIFT key broken?

  13. Oh Thankyou for reposting this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    I lost the last one about 7 days ago. I wanted to post this on my refrigerator so badly, and now it can be done. Thankyou!

  14. So many negative posts by coopaq · · Score: 3, Informative

    This stuff actually looks pretty good:

    http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

    It really is just another way of hosting right?

    I think S3 seems to work well for some people also.

    1. Re:So many negative posts by starfishsystems · · Score: 1

      Read the SLA. Note the utter absence of any reference to data privacy or integrity. The committed uptime is slightly worse than what I've logged on my office system over the past ten years, taking into account kernel panics, hardware failures, and scheduled upgrades. Hardly a high availability solution, in other words.

      --
      Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
    2. Re:So many negative posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This doesn't stop a ton of companies from using it. Why? Convenience and cost. Cheaper things come with fewer guarantees, news at 11.

    3. Re:So many negative posts by u38cg · · Score: 1

      On the face of it, it looks pretty good, and perhaps for certain types of application it might make sense. However, sit and work out what you're getting for your money - it is pretty expensive compared to a dedicated server.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    4. Re:So many negative posts by ionix5891 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      as someone who runs a "cluster" of few dozen servers and several sites as big or bigger than slashdot, I can tell you this amazon is very very expensive

      its useful when you need to scale up or scale down fast, otherwise I estimated using their calculator my monthly bills would be 5x times my current server/electricity/bandwidth/other costs combined

    5. Re:So many negative posts by coopaq · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I might say if you also count the workers employed for the maintenance, scaling and general upkeep of your own "cluster" it would make the price on par with what Amazon is offering.

      Agreed though that the better SLA may be some time coming. We will see how it plays out.

  15. Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too bad God's Intelligently designed dinosaurs (like IBM today) went extinct.

  16. "The Cloud" by sycodon · · Score: 1

    Great.

    Another buzzword that idiot journalists will write pages and pages of gibberish about.

    And idiot HR people will want someone having 10 years of" in depth experience" in it.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:"The Cloud" by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      And idiot HR people will want someone having 10 years of" in depth experience" in it.

      That's why I still keep my Push Technology For Dummies book on the shelf! Someday I'm going to cash in on that hot offline browsing action!

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    2. Re:"The Cloud" by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Great! I live in Wales - I've got way more than ten years of experience with clouds!

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  17. the effects of fake clouds/weather on human'kind' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    less sunlight=less healthy. no answer available on the whereabouts of the real clouds/weather. better days ahead?

    greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children, not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

    we note that yahoo deletes some of its' (relevant) stories sooner than others. maybe they're short of disk space, or something?
    http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/23/what.matters.thirst/index.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
    (deleted)http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_us/tent_cities;_ylt=A0wNcyS6yNJIZBoBSxKs0NUE
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html#cnnSTCText
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/10/07/atwood.debt/index.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
    (deleted, still in google cache)http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308;_ylt=A0wNcxTPdJhILAYAVQms0NUE
    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/voting.problems/index.html
    (deleted)http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/ts_nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=A0wNcwhhcb5It3EBoy2s0NUE
    (talk about cowardlly race fixing/bad theater/fiction?) http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/19/news/economy/sec_short_selling/index.htm?cnn=yes
    http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=ApTbxRfLnscxaGGuCocWlwq7YWsA/SIG=11qicue6l/**http%3A//biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/meltdown_kashkari.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
    (the teaching of hate as a way of 'life' synonymous with failed dictatorships) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/newspapers_islam_dvd;_ylt=A0wNcwWdfudITHkACAus0NUE
    (some yoga & yogurt makes killing/getting killed less stressful) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_re_us/warrior_mind;_ylt=A0wNcw9iXutIPkMBwzGs0NUE
    (the old bait & switch...your share of the resulting 'product' is a fairytail nightmare?)
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money;_ylt=A0wNcwJGwvFIZAQAE6ms0NUE

    is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give

  18. yuo fa1l 1t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    series Bof dEbates

  19. I thought the cloud got canceled... by istartedi · · Score: 1

    ...by Depression 2.0. Either that, or the CEO of Oracle canceled it. I mean all this CDO, Derivative, dot-com crap finally blew up in a way that really matters. Don't you get i? Fads were just a fad!

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  20. Compare the presentation by jd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On the one hand, you've cloud computing resources, which supply minimal information, some source but a LOT of buzzwords, versus distributed computing versus grid computing, where there's a lot more information on what is (and is not) provided, and a lot more code is there. Ultimately, the best way to tell if something is worthwhile is to see if the provider thinks it's worthwhile. Cloud providers don't think it worthwhile to do for profit the work grid providers do for free, ergo cloud providers don't rate their own service highly. If they don't, why should anyone else?

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  21. Not 'the cloud' again... by jaxtherat · · Score: 1

    Seriously, we should rename the 'cloud computing' tag to 'horseshit'.

    --
    http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
  22. Woo hoo! by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

    I create several clouds a day, and can't wait to sell them in the new regime. //pauses

    Oh man, I'm about to create a ne

    "BRAAAAAp put put"

    Cloud....

    Maybe I should stop eating boiled eggs. //staggers away from the effluent cloud

    --
    _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  23. VCL uses VMware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I reading this correctly that the VCL software they are incubating at Apache uses VMware ESX? Ugh! If so, that puts it in the "mostly useless" category. Why doesn't it use Xen or KVM or OpenVZ or just use libvirt?

  24. The only problem with this by kilodelta · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Is that whether you want to believe it or not, cloud computing is a subscription service.

    Company I work for right now shells about $250 a month for Central Desktop, plus another $12 per mailbox for 26 people. Oh and add about $14 per Blackberry for about 8 people. Adds up to $674 a month, or $8,088 a year.

    I frequently make the case that a little shoebox server could run Linux with Qmail and Apache on it and we could get the whole kit and kaboodle for lots less than $8K a year.

  25. I rather have my data... by HigH5 · · Score: 1

    ...come to me than fetching it through browser all the time. It's nice to have redundancy through web clients if anything breaks down locally but I to me feels cloud computing more clunky and unproductive than local.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse delendam.
  26. Interesting new definitions of those words by jc42 · · Score: 1

    The writer does have some radically new definitions of a few terms. Thus, calling either a biological cell or cloud computing "efficient" is totally bizarre, unless you are using the term in a way that's different from any dictionary definition. Biologists would just laugh a the idea. Then they'd probably go into either a list of all the known inefficiencies in the basic biochemistry, or they'd try to explain that the evolutionary process doesn't care much about efficiency. All that matters is relative survival. And the process itself is dependent on random mutation that are usually (but not always) detrimental to the organism.

    Similarly, anyone who has looked at the low-level details of the Internet (i.e., various protocols) will tell you that it's far from efficient. Like biological systems, it has won out and thrived not because it's perfect, but it's better in several important ways than any of its competitors. The major reason, of course, is its free/open nature. Anyone can download any of the specs and implement them without permission from anyone else.

    Thus, back in the 1980s, I worked on a number of OSI projects. Repeatedly, what would happen is that we'd order the docs we needed to start implementing, going through the usual purchasing red tape that every company has, fire off the purchase order, and wait. While we were waiting, we'd play around with our ideas on IP. We'd fetch the docs and have them in a few minutes. By the time we got the docs we needed, we'd already had our ideas up and running on IP. We usually had IP-based deliverable before we could even start coding for OSI. Eventually, the idea got through to even the most dimwitted managers.

    I also sat through a number of explanations of why DECnet was superior to IP. Maybe it was, but as a developer, I found that (even when working on contract to DEC), I couldn't get at the low-level details of DECnet that I needed. With IP, all the information was available in minutes with no bureaucratic hassle. So it didn't matter if DECnet was technically superior; it was sufficiently hidden from developers like me that I couldn't write (semi-)reliable code for it like I could for IP.

    Efficiency is useful and desirable, but it's not the first concern for either biological or electronic systems. First, you have to function well in your environment. Then you can worry about efficiency. A good designer will think about both in parallel, of course; even the idiotic evolutionary process "understands" that. But unless it works in the real-world environment, it doesn't matter how efficient it is.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  27. Next step to manna by g8orade · · Score: 1

    The first thing about these articles is to realize that business and government are big proponents. That's why one article about balancing convenience vs. privacy is important. RMS knows this.

    That's why a recent NYTimes article about the quants' influence on the financial meltdown quoted Ted Kazcinsky sp? and why an article a few years ago called Why the Future Doesn't Need Us did too.

    The second thing to realize is so are consumers of Google and the iPhone.

    So all of the kvetching about the use of the term "cloud" really (REALLY) misses the point. Get over it to what it means.

    Centralized network terminal computing on central servers is coming and it's going to hit a tipping point that will or may already be affecting your life, depending on your type of business ERP or your own consumer habits.

    You might want to look up the short story Manna at MarshallBrain for a dystopian perspective.

    You may want to think.

  28. Elastic vs. Static computing needs by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

    as someone who runs a "cluster" of few dozen servers and several sites as big or bigger than slashdot, I can tell you this amazon is very very expensive

    That would be because you are trying to take service that is not designed for your use case and shoehorn it into your use case. True, you could use EC2 as a web host, but that is not what it's designed for since your computing needs are static.

    To get value out of the Elastic Compute Cloud, you need to have elastic computing needs. Let's say one of your super-huge websites gets a traffic spike of 3X on the first day of every month. For your data center solution, you would need to spec infrastructure to meet your peak volumes. But your peak volume happens only once per month. For the rest of the month, 2/3 of your infrastructure is idling. This is a colossal waste of resources, and EC2 could save you money.

    Or how about another great use of EC2: the cold spare. I host my apartment rental business website on a cheapie webhost that is prone to experience downtime 2-3 times per year (Dreamhost). Despite Dreamhost being notoriously flaky, I can achieve respectable uptimes because whenever Dreamhost bites the dust, my website automatically fails over to EC2. With EC2, I only pay while I'm using it, but just having it there allows me to get away with using a $5/mo webhost for a business website.

    For what you get, EC2 is dirt cheap. When my website goes down, I need it back up ASAP, and with EC2, I can automatically fail over in under 5 minutes, and it only costs me $0.10/hr while my cold spare is in use. An entire year's worth of respectable availability costs me less than a Starbucks coffee. Now that is value.

    --
    They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock