Enough of the "cloud" computing crap. ENOUGH!

[Robert Munch]

Citrix is also $$$$$$$$$$$$$$, requires a lot of technical expertise, and in house hardware. Not the same thing.

You can get a Google Apps Premier account for around $50/year, and each email address under it costs $5. With it, you get site building, document sharing, personalized Gmail, scheduling, and syncing with smart phones. This is an example of a cloud computing solution, and it's selling like hot cakes. In fact, San Fransisco's govt moved to it exclusively, along with many other municipalities due to the cost savings and reduced IT dependence alone.

Company I work did this and contact sharing is awful especially group contacts. Lot of users have issues with contact sync'ing. Noticing some mail delays also which google has recognized but, really never has a solid answer on why and how this will be fixed. It's not as "good" as it sounds and will probably go back to an Exchange environment since emails are crucial in the industry I work with.

 

[shortylickens]

Holy shit people. Maybe the problem with the term "cloud" is that people are misusing it to apply to anything. Citrix is not a cloud solution; it's dumb terminals revisited.

IMO, cloud at its core means letting someone else deal with your physical data center. Bake in virtualization and high/instant-scalability for good measure.

The generalization of the term may be the problem with it.

Thats exactly what I was thinking, would also solve the problem people have with it being a business buzzword.

 

[Rudee]

People are sheep. Whatever the new cool word of phrase of the day is, many will feel cool and hip if they have a chance to drop the phrase or word into a conversation. A perfect example would be the term "batshit crazy" Before, just calling somebody crazy was fine, but people are sheep, so once you hear a few people on TV saying the phrase "batshit crazy" you have to use that same expression as well, otherwise you're not hip and cool.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hate it too. I think the concept is great for a locally based and operated "cloud" but not internet one. For example, you run a virtual desktop environment, manage it yourself, and deploy thinclients. This is great. But relying on an outside service, no. I would hate to have my data managed by a 3rd party. The closest thing I'll do to a 3rd party is have them host my server or rent me a server, but I still have control over the software part. Even then, if I had the bandwidth I would prefer to have my services all in house.

And "cloud computing" is not even a new concept, they just tagged that word to things that have been going on for ages. Really it tends to be used for all sorts of applications too, it's not really defined what it is.

Lot of people have been doing cloud computing without even realizing it, every time they bring their laptop on a plane.

 

[dwell]

Lot of people have been doing cloud computing without even realizing it, every time they bring their laptop on a plane.

 

[Fritzo]

Company I work did this and contact sharing is awful especially group contacts. Lot of users have issues with contact sync'ing. Noticing some mail delays also which google has recognized but, really never has a solid answer on why and how this will be fixed. It's not as "good" as it sounds and will probably go back to an Exchange environment since emails are crucial in the industry I work with.

Like what types of problems? We switched a 5000 seat company over in August and they're not having any problems with shared or grouping contacts (most of which is handled by the admin API).

 

[alkemyst]

This is some fucked up things to hear on a tech board. Yes, cloud is abused today...however; saying it's just server/client or WWW shit is totally absurd and ignorant.

I sort of know what I am speaking on since I work with it and the major partners. I am not a salesman so I don't really care about buzzwords and margins. It's different technology.

It's like saying a Nexus 7000 is just a switch.

 

[Doppel]

Holy shit people. Maybe the problem with the term "cloud" is that people are misusing it to apply to anything. Citrix is not a cloud solution; it's dumb terminals revisited.

IMO, cloud at its core means letting someone else deal with your physical data center. Bake in virtualization and high/instant-scalability for good measure.

The generalization of the term may be the problem with it.

hehe, and to be honest you're "misusing" it as well; anybody who speaks of it is. It really doesn't mean anything concrete and nobody can seem to agree on what it is. Easy scaling is just one aspect of it. Another is the dumb terminal approach, like google docs. Another is Kindle Fire's silk browser, though that's analogous to your definition on a smaller basis.

Exactly three years ago the CEO of Oracle said this about Cloud Computing:

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

"We'll make cloud computing announcements. I'm not going to fight this thing. But I don't understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud."

This is some fucked up things to hear on a tech board...
I sort of know what I am speaking on since I work with it and the major partners.

Ah finally somebody on this tech board who has familiarity with cloud computing, certainly the first in this thread.

 

[alkemyst]

Well Doppel, that's just it. Cloud is a combination of a lot of things we already do...however, there is a lot of thing being done to optimize this and also sell it as a complete solution with everything working well together.

Oracle's Larry Ellison talks a lot of smack at times against those that sell products against his and that probably had a lot to do with some of that statement.

3 years ago though is a lifetime and cloud is only now really taking off. Their were a lot of naysayers then and that is always the story remembered.

In my Nexus 7000 example above, no one saw a need for an ultra low-latency layer 2 only switch platform...something going away from the emerging layer2/3 switching/routers.

There is a HUGE market for this device, it's a very expensive device.

It's easy to say in the end CLOUD is just server/client computing over the WAN on steriods...but there are a lot more intracracies than just that.

 

[dwell]

hehe, and to be honest you're "misusing" it as well; anybody who speaks of it is. It really doesn't mean anything concrete and nobody can seem to agree on what it is. Easy scaling is just one aspect of it. Another is the dumb terminal approach, like google docs. Another is Kindle Fire's silk browser, though that's analogous to your definition on a smaller basis.

Yeah. What I am describing is PaaS (Platform as a Service) which is the EC2, Google AppEngine, Azure model.

Guilty of misusing the term cloud.

 

[mimic58]

Maybe i am just to old and stuborn and set in my ways as an I.T worker to give cloud a chance..

Personaly i think it is one of the single lamest buzzword ever.. I'm not sure if i dispise it as much as Mac's but its getting close.

I can see no real benefit to it this is the problem. I already do all of my work remotley, I can access it anyware in the world without the need to install software or have a high spech pc.. And if the server has a problem, Its mirrored to a backup so i have dual redundancy, As yet iv never had to ask for help from the, Recess monkeys in the data centers, If there is a problem i just fix it..

To me Cloud means paying a shitload of money to look after all your problems.. Sounds great in concept But heres the thing.. Most of you pay your broadband provider to do the same thing, Have you ever had to call them when there was a problem??? , How did you find that experience?? Hours on the phone to india? no broadband for a week??

Well imagen that cloud is going to be 10,000 times worse, The issues will be far far more complex, The volume of calls will be insane, and the chances are your still going to get a call center in india when things go wrong, And best of all you will be powerless to do anything about it.. They will have you by the balls , They've got all your data and program support, Your entire business is going to come to screetching halt while you wait for them to fix the problem... you really think their wont be a clause in your T.O.S about this??

 

[alkemyst]

mimic???? you say you are a old IT worker, but how did you get spech as an abbreviation? Also I have never heard the term 'recess monkey'.

not everyone is a candidate for the adoption of new things.

Also at the enterprise level I find I don't deal with 'india' that much.

 

[stacey1981]

We're slowly mitigating all our sites to gmail. PITA but I'm hoping the benefits are worth it. Had enough of CALs dropping off the server just because they feel like it!

 

[KidNiki1]

We're slowly mitigating all our sites

i do not think that word means what you think it means.


migrating?

also, the term 'cloud' is lame and makes me grrrrr when used in reference to computing.

 

[freegeeks]

I just can't stand the marketing blitz by MS, VMware, et all. "meh, just throw it to the cloud! The cloud can do it!"

With no understanding of the networking complexity and cost required to do such a thing. Remember, microsoft and VMware have always been very poor in understanding networking.

I was in CiscoLive Las Vegas a couple of months ago. Every keynote speech was about the damn cloud. It was there every couple of sentences. The most hilarious speech was one of the Cisco partners giving a demo how the life of a senior network engineer would look like in the future. It was some kind of dumb video where an engineer clicked a button in a fancy GUI and magically a whole new connection between Hong Kong and NYC was created while sipping a mochachino. Me and the other 2000 engineers just looked at each other and were all thinking the same, "do these marketing people really believe this bullshit"

just got up and went to the "advanced BGP troubleshooting" session, a little bit more usefull then this bullshit

 

[spidey07]

I was in CiscoLive Las Vegas a couple of months ago. Every keynote speech was about the damn cloud. It was there every couple of sentences. The most hilarious speech was one of the Cisco partners giving a demo how the life of a senior network engineer would look like in the future. It was some kind of dumb video where an engineer clicked a button in a fancy GUI and magically a whole new connection between Hong Kong and NYC was created while sipping a mochachino. Me and the other 2000 engineers just looked at each other and were all thinking the same, "do these marketing people really believe this bullshit"

just got up and went to the "advanced BGP troubleshooting" session, a little bit more usefull then this bullshit

Truth be told I'm focusing my career around Dara center networking and unified fabric. It's going to be super hot with not a lot of folks good at it.

 

[freegeeks]

Truth be told I'm focusing my career around Dara center networking and unified fabric. It's going to be super hot with not a lot of folks good at it.

Don't know how the job situation is in the USA but over here there is a giant shortage of IT people. Enrollment in IT higher education is only 40% what it was 10 years ago. Companies have vacancies open for a year and can't find anyone. I'm a freelance network engineer and I have at least 2-3 calls a week from IT contracting agencies asking if I'm on a contract because they have an urgent request from a client for experienced profiles.
At the same enrollment for useless social degrees and human studies and other crap is up 80%. Every time I see an article about this I get a big smile on my face

the future looks very bright indeed, they can show all the fancy powerpoints they want, they will always need a well paid schmuck like me with a blue rollover cable to design and configure the damn box :thumbsup:

 

[lxskllr]

The term “cloud computing” is a marketing buzzword with no clear meaning. It is used for a range of different activities whose only common characteristic is that they use the Internet for something beyond transmitting files. Thus, the term is a nexus of confusion. If you base your thinking on it, your thinking will be vague.
When thinking about or responding to a statement someone else has made using this term, the first step is to clarify the topic. Which kind of activity is the statement really about, and what is a good, clear term for that activity? Once the topic is clear, the discussion can head for a useful conclusion.
Curiously, Larry Ellison, a proprietary software developer, also noted the vacuity of the term “cloud computing.” He decided to use the term anyway because, as a proprietary software developer, he isn't motivated by the same ideals as we are.

And more...


http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html