Slashdot Mirror
Apple Confirms It Uses Google's Cloud For iCloud Services (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: A file that Apple updated on its website last month provides the first acknowledgment that it's relying on Google's public cloud for data storage for its iCloud services. The disclosure is fresh evidence that Google's cloud has been picking up usage as it looks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure business. Some media outlets reported on Google's iCloud win in 2016, but Apple never provided confirmation. Apple periodically publishes new versions of a PDF called the iOS Security Guide. For years the document contained language indicating that iCloud services were relying on remote data storage systems from Amazon Web Services, as well as Microsoft's Azure. But in the latest version, the Microsoft Azure reference is gone, and in its place is Google Cloud Platform. Before the January update, Apple most recently updated the iOS Security Guide in March. The latest update doesn't indicate whether Apple is using any Google cloud services other than core storage of "objects" like photos and videos. The document also doesn't make it clear when Apple started storing data in Google's cloud.
Everyone rants about how great Apple security is and how google spyâ(TM)s on people (which they do). Well it looks like Apple cloud is just a shell on top of google. Yippy.
The article doesn't seem to break it out, but I recall what Apple has been doing with storage is that they store encrypted data on third party clouds (like AWS / Google / Azure), but all of the metadata aspects are held on Apple servers so they maintain control.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Should I be Shocked that Rivals in the Phone Market are being partners in an other area?
Actually compared to Google and Amazon, Apple tends to play nice in areas they are not competing in, and fiercely in areas which they are.
We See this with Apple and Google, Apple and Samsung...
While Apple being one of the worlds largest companies, it could go on its own, and play games with its rivals and mess up other areas. But they tend to play relatively nice.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
just..amusing.
I am surprised they didn't build or buy their own cloud service with how obsessed they seem to be with in sourcing and snapping up small tech firms
Since they've been building datacenters for over 5 years, what are they using them for? Even the 500k square foot one in North Carolina was already overkill, more so if they're just holding metadata.
Fun task: on Windows, rip a new CD with iTunes, preferably something rare. Start Resource Monitor, go to Network, TCP Connections, Search for iTunes. Was trying to find a different network hog this weekend and saw iTunes uploading to AWS, which made no sense.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
they don't have any server hardware and if they did it will be some thing that looks cool vs sucks on being repaired / and has lot's of apple only lock in.
But, Cloud server has total control over ALL the processes. Amazon, Azure and Google would be able to read the memory of ALL the processes they host. Usually there is no adversarial relationship between Google, Apple and the proverbial tool and die manufacturer in Kansas.
But... for Amazon, being able to read the processes used by someone in the supply chain of Walmart or CVS would be very valuable. One could argue it would be foolish for Amazon to violate the trust of its Cloud service users, it could even be very difficult and impossible to pull it off and even impossible to hide... But still this is enough to demand Walmart or CVS or Giant or Home Depot to demand none of their vendors host anything on Amazon cloud. This might provide a way for these companies to collude against Amazon without drawing the attention of FTC.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They do, however, buy third party servers for their infrastructure, including parts of iCloud hosting.
I would have also expected Apple to have more in-house cloud hosting, as *generally* when you get to very large scale, it becomes cheaper to own it rather than to rent it in absolute terms. From a capital expense versus operational expense, there is still a set of companies that are very averse to having capital, but Apple doesn't strike me as being in a position where they should have to fret about having too much capital.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Azure as hell would not want any personal item stored on any friggin cloud.
At the end of the day no one company is a jack of all trades. If Google has a solid / reliable data storage infrastructure that can be had for a good price then why not? IBM at one point for example nearly self-destructed because they were a monolithic company who insisted that you had to only use their own products (Token Ring, Lotus Notes) even thou they had their massive downsides. Eventually the company broke up into micro-companies under the same name and were allowed to buy the most cost effective products instead of IBM only. I'm sure some folks at Google for example use Windows products despite it being from a competitor (Microsoft).
So unlimited photo storage and complete cloud backups for everything from my iPhone can't be too far away.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Perhaps Apple is offshoring the data because Google, Amazon and Microsoft have distributed data centers. The phone and other metadata is small and can hit Apple directly, but backup data is large and if it all came from Apple's few data centers, people in Asia and other places might have a long wait, whereas by using Google/Amazon/Microsoft, they have a mini-CDN set up so your large amount of data can come from a nearby server.
It would not surprise me if Apple used the same thing to cache iOS and macOS updates worldwide - iOS update day has been known to generate so much traffic it beats Netflix, so Apple is using them as a simple CDN. (And I believe since the files are signed anyways, Apple uses HTTP so intermediary cache servers will cache the file as well)
Quite surprised there's been ZERO mention of Slashdot's outage last week? Entire site was down for a few hours, came back up and now on AWS. This would be the first major change I've ever seen at least since OSDN. It's also the reason Slashdot itself has been slow as snot.
Point is companies lie about where they store your data. There are a _lot_ of companies that are nothing more then front end caching or outright redirects to AWS / Azure. It's quite sickening. They are guaranteeing your data will have to reside in the US since those providers don't operate data centers in all countries. Not even AWS has one in Canada.
My point is that Apple is of sufficient scale that they already have international distributed data centers. Given they already feel the need to have such a footprint, the incremental cost to do it in-house versus outsourcing for most companies in that position would be lesser than renting the capacity.
I do know of a couple of companies that look at the cost and kick themselves, seeing that their up front decision to cloud host ended up being more costly than in-house, but so would be the cost of migrating, so they are stuck paying higher amounts on an ongoing basis.
Apple has a quarterly profit that exceeds most companies annual revenue at this point, so they have the cash flow to overcome such hurdles, unless their internal IT is just hopeless, they should be able to do a lot to seek the lowest overall cost. By the same token, Apple is on such unbelievably solid ground that they don't need to go by the 'assets are a bigger liability than expense, even if having to spend more money' philosophy that other companies are often stuck with.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
https://xkcd.com/908/
I WAS right, Apple CANNOT SURVIVE ON ITS OWN..
Apple just just that a Conception.
They have nothing,
They are nothing,
Worthless piece of shit..
With Today's revelations coming fourth today, we realize how confusing this must be to the average Apple Product consumer.
With that said,
"We in the larger community have come to the realization that Apple, it's products, thinking, and distribution are in a short group of words "FUCKING LAME." We are threw with being Mind-fucked, blowing our hard earned money on your "bullshit." So much money made, and so little real invention."
The I fone exx is a complete pile of shit, so bad Samsung is ramping down production of critical components. Yes Samsung, their number one competitor. All they are doing is looking for relevance AT ANY PRICE. With YOUR MONEY.
Fucking dirt-bags, Ya keep walking into those Beautiful, magical, COSTLY windows at hed-Quarters.
bottom line is.
With out their competitors APPLE would be nothing!
With out their competitors, Intel, Microsoft, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, Panasonic, SMC, SK Hynix would all be doing fine, as they are all PRODUCERS, INNOVATORS, and Distributors they dont need to rely "like a parasite" on others for survival..