On Monday 01 March 2010 21:54:51 Matthias Johnson wrote: > On Mar 1, 2010, at 9:14 PM, Mark Wallace > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I see. the problem is that I just experienced over 60 hours with no > > internet access. Wouldn't that make it impossible to do much of > > anything with my computer? > > Ok so this is probably the biggest back and forth on lug I have seen > to date and it has morphed slightly off the original email but to me > this is the most damning thing about cloud computing. If we were in an > always connected world it might work but we are not. Also the fact > that open wifi is slowly becoming illegal these days the filtered > options for public wifi will probably be less than desirable. Cloud > computing is definately something not needed IMO. It also brings up > the issues of fair use and such. Which laws apply? Where the server > resides or the user? > > Matthias Johnson
I'll throw this in, as it might answer some of your questions concerning "cloud computing" such as... "Whaaat is it?!?" [Cat from Red Dwarf...] I recently went to an IEEE meeting about cloud computing (Nov 2009 I think?). As far as I could tell the term "cloud computing" mostly means "an automated method for a user to request and for a system to provision a virtual machine, with the specified resources". In other words, you visit a web page to order a virtual box, you choose what kind of setup you want from a list of predefined configurations (one of which hopefully fits most of what you need), you click "go", and in a couple of minutes you've got a remote box available to you that you can ssh to, where you can modify the setup from there. Sounded like from there you can automate spawning virtual machines with duplicate configurations if you need to scale some network application. As far as I could tell, it's mostly geared towards businesses that can use that kind of automation in order to handle a network load that varies. It's not an end-all be-all solution -- it's essentially a niche market. For an individual, there isn't much need for this kind of system unless that person is running a business like Craig's List, Paypal, etc -- something that needs to be able to scale. Whether "cloud computing" could host services like these more cheaply than doing it "in-house" isn't clear. If it isn't, then "cloud computing" is essentially a solution in search of a problem. -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration Apr 7 - Nagios May 5 - Android
