Posted on 01/10/2011 8:19:05 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It’s also got a lot to do with money.
Microsoft, for one, is trying to curtail the piracy issue and sees the cloud as a way to keep the dollars flowing into their accounts and NOT the pockets of bootleggers.
ping
Nobody is a bigger advocate for the cloud than Google. Microsoft pales in comparison.
“Cloud” computing is only becoming de rigeur in retail markets due to the proliferation of thin client technologies in business.
VMWare’s VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) is the latest in “cloud computing” utilizing large SANs like those available from EMC. They see how well it works in multi-national business, the control it gives them, and now they’re working to exert control over the masses in the same way.
I, for one, will be keeping my data local. I have a few terabytes of backup space and two Ultrium tape drives running full and incremental backups every day. I trust myself more the MS, EMC, and Cisco.
Did they give you permission to have that idea? Everytime I see one of these threads about off-site storage or cloud[y thinking] computing, I sit down and list as many of the disasters-in-waiting as I can. It's just unbelievable what a moronic idea this is.
For large organizations such as my employer, virtual desktops provide great management of clients. However, in real-world practical terms, the problems that will arise from rolling outages or network connectivity issues will drive people back to local desktops very quickly.
I remember posting a message saying that we have important information already on a company’s server somewhere in the cloud.
I cited those who have their e-mails using Yahoo mail or Google mail as an example.
The response to me was in effect — those who trust Yahoo and Google to keep your data private or even to secure your data are not smart.
Well what can I say? That makes millions of people out there...
all yur data bits r belong to us..........
I know. I see some small potential benefits, but the number and severity of the risks, especially with the industry’s history of data leakage and theft, and their ongoing desire to charge you repeatedly for the same thing, the cost-benefit seems like nowhere near breakeven to me.
The responder was me.
Well what can I say? That makes millions of people out there...
Yes, it does. And that's not a good thing.
(It kind of sounds as if you're politely trying to dissuade me from labeling as "idiots", "morons", "fools", "cretins" and so on, those whose decisions are shared by millions of others. I give you in response O's election, McCain's nomination, McCain's reelection, and so on.)
There’s absolutely no break-even, and I doubt there ever will be. Our data is best secured by our own hand. I don’t even trust Microsoft’s vault or their encryption, but I use it (with a fairly-priced PPM on my mobo) with a very complex and lengthy password (91 character alphanumeric/symbolic).
The possibility of data theft is astronomical considering what the Chicomms have done. There’s also the issue of idiot users who click on any email that asks them for a password under the guise of an “oops” on the part of the sending “company.”
Like I said, I’ll stick with my local storage, esp. considering how much the costs have plummeted for the largest of external disks.
Not just bootleggers. Virtualization has opened some people's eyes how horribly wasteful it is to have sinegle-purpose MS-Windows servers in their datacenters. You take a look at the stand-alone MS-Windows servers and you'll see a huge number of servers that are essentially running idle on modern CPUs. Not only is that wasteful in hardware, it has to be provisioned for power, cooling, space, and resources such as disk, and network.
The amount of waste this represents is staggering when you put it all together.
That's not to say that other types of computer systems can't be similarly wasteful, but more often than not, Unix and other midrange platforms are not provisioned as single-purpose systems.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, you have all these internet companies that think the BOR was a suggestion, as long as the data in question is yours, and are willing to INTENTIONALLY give it to any branch of government on the basis of any request, absent a warrant! Who the hell are they to be waiving other peoples rights?
With Net Neutrality and now O-wee-wee proposing an individual Internet ID for the masses, why in the world would anyone want to put their data “in the cloud?”
Last I checked, clouds dissipate.
While I don’t trust the ‘cloud’ stuff, I’m big on virtualization. From a testing perspective, it’s a freaking Godsend. I can run VMs of half a dozen different clients and configurations from one well-equiped workstation. From a business perspective, it is a no-brainer. Still took me forever to sell it to management though when I was first pushing it through our organization. I’ve still seen a lot less take-up by other internal organizations that I initially expected. I guess folks like having multiple workstations under their desk.
AFTER they hail on you.
Virtualization is an amazing thing! We run a farm of 5 HP BladeSystems connected to our SAN with ESX. We’re also testing VDI. It’s a great technology. I use VM Workstation at home with multiple VMs for testing on my home network and domain.
Cloud computing should not be confused with virtualization technology. The two are worlds apart.
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