By Andrew Min
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about cloud computing. The CherryPal Linux-based machine got on both Slashdot and Digg when it announced it was shipping a machine with “Firefox as the OS”. The BBC ran an article that claimed that Microsoft was ending the Windows era with a new operating system, Midori, which would store almost all your information in the cloud, getting rid of you being tied to one machine. And the Red Hat CEO thinks that cloud computing is the way of the future. Unfortunately, they’re all wrong. For now, the computer is staying right where it is.
It’s All About Speed and Power
Today, hardware failure isn’t the main reason computers stop being used. What is? Outdated power. Not corrupted hard drives, broken RAM, or fried processors. I have a computer in my attic. Everything is in working condition. Windows XP runs on it perfectly well (which for Windows XP is only-crashes-once-an-hour well). However, no one in our family uses it. Why? It’s got a crummy 128 MB of RAM, a Pentium II processor, and an ancient graphics card. To put it bluntly, it’s too slow. People want powerful machines. And the internet isn’t ready to take on the power of desktops, at least not yet. A recent Pew Research study found that approximately 10% of Americans still use dial-up. 10%. Additionally, there are still many people in the world who just don’t use the internet, whether for lack of availability or for lack of interest. There’s no chance that these users could use a cloud-based operating system without changing their data plans, which many of them just don’t want to do.
But even if those users could be persuaded to switch to broadband or DSL, there’s still the problem that neither are really that fast. Ever tried downloading a gigabyte file? It’s slow. And then, how about uploading the dang thing? Cloud supporters would argue that you’d create everything online so that you wouldn’t have to worry about uploading, but that’s just not true. What about digital pictures? Are you really going to want to wait half an hour for a gigabyte of photos to be uploaded to your cloud? And upload speeds aren’t th only problem. You can’t play Call of Duty 4 via the cloud. It would be way too slow. The only way it could possibly work is if you keep the client and all the graphics on your machine. The problem? Besides the fact that this completely defeats portability, you’ll still need a big hard drive. If that’s the case, what’s the real advantage of cloud computing?
It’s the Price, Stupid
Internet pricing is extremely expensive. For example, look at Amazon S3, one of the most popular cloud hosts around. I looked at how much 160GB was worth, as 160GB should be enough for the average user (of course, it’s far too little for users who do lots of multimedia or graphics editing). It was $24/month, plus $0.10/GB for data transfer. Not bad. But then I looked at NewEgg, a popular online computer store. I found a 160GB Western Digital hard drive with a 7200 RPM, 8MB of cache, and a 3.0GB/s speed. Price? $43.99. In less than two months, the WD hard drive was cheaper than Amazon S3. Just to make sure it wasn’t just Amazon, I looked at Apple’s MobileMe. It only offers 20GB by default, but you can add more storage. It’s not really worth it, though: 160GB of storage is $445/year, or about $37/month. And of course, it’s only compatible with Windows and OS X, leaving Linux users out of the picture.
There’s been hope that online hosting prices will go down enough so that it won’t be a factor in cloud computing. Sadly, I’m not so sure that will be the case. Certainly, prices will go down. However, will it be low enough? The answer lies in why the pricing is so expensive in the first place. Companies need to buy servers, backup servers, and a place to keep all of these servers. In addition, they need to make a profit. Server pricing is tied to hard drive pricing, since the hard drive is one of the most expensive parts of a server. Certainly, there are other factors. But often, when server pricing goes down, hard drive pricing has already gone down.
Security, Security, Security. Oh, Privacy Too.
Google’s been the target of a lot of public outcry recently. But what have they all been about? That’s right: privacy. We scream about giving Google our shopping history and letting them potentially see inside of our emails. How is it that we are even considering letting Google host all of our files? And that’s Google, which has a near-perfect track record with privacy. Would you seriously trust Microsoft (the probable cloud host for its Midori OS), a company with a horrible privacy track record, with all of your data? Would you trust CherryPal or Red Hat (the host of the CherryPal cloud computer and the probable host if RHEL ever does go into the cloud), companies with no privacy track record, with all of your data? Would you trust Amazon (one of the most popular cloud hosts), a company with a lousy privacy track record, with all of your data? You might try and encrypt everything, but that will make everything even more slower. Besides, encryption can be broken. Therefore, you’ll only want to put your data on a server that’s owned by a company that you trust. And who can you trust? The big companies are the ones that have all the privacy leaks (both unintentionally and intentionally), while the small ones are run by people you’ve never heard of. Of course, some would suggest hosting it yourself. First of all, you have to assume that the cloud OS will actually let you run your own server. In the case of Midori and CherryPal, that is very doubtful. Besides, even if you could host your own server, all the advantages of cloud computing (portability and remote access, for example) would be gone.
Downtime Isn’t Cool
Cloud computing’s uptime record is far from perfect. In fact, it’s crap. Look at MobileMe’s syncing problems. Or Twitter’s perennial downtime. Heck, look at Gmail. A couple of weeks ago, it went down for almost everyone. It was maddening not being able to access Gmail for over half an hour. I was expecting several important emails, and I couldn’t read them. Luckily for me, none of them were time-dependent. Can you imagine if it was? What if I were working out a difficult contract with an impatient client, and the server went down? I’ll tell you, I’d be mad.
The main reason is the hosts. The best-known cloud host out there is Amazon S3. In July, it went down for a whopping 6 hours. 6 hours. It was bad enough that a few relatively unimportant applications (in the scheme of life) like Twitter and Pownce went down. But imagine if your word processor was S3-dependent. Sure, that’s only about 6 hours every year or so. But 6 hours can make or break an important business deal.
Another well-known application host is Google App Engine. Since it’s Google, you’d expect it to have terrific downtime. And in Google’s defense, it does. But for 5 hours in June, it didn’t. In fact, it was completely down, which meant that applications like Jaiku also went down. Again, Jaiku is not really that important to people in the grand scheme of things. But what if you were scrambling to meet the tax deadline, and your finance application broke down becuase of a five hour downtime period? You’d be pretty upset, let me tell you.
But Wait, There’s Hope!
It’s still possible that cloud computing can take off. The speed and power and the uptime issues will eventually die down. Once they do, their pros will outweigh the cons of price, or the price will go down enough so that it will be affordable. All that’s left is privacy. And I’m confident that the internet will find some way to compensate for it.
19 comments ↓
Thank you for talking about the CherryPal C100. I am linking to this page from my blog, CherryPal for Everyone, at cherrypal dot blogspot dot com. I am excited about how the CherryPal can bridge barriers to people who have not had access to computers or the internet because of money, fear, education or other challenges. I will be commenting on my experience of using it on my blog as soon as I get my own CherryPal C100! You can use CODE CPP206 to get your own CherryPal for $10 less than purchase price when they are shipping (soon!) The best update I’ve gotten on availability is that the delay is due to a last minute decision to upgrade the solid state storage to a faster, higher quality version than planned. The hardware is working perfectly but the software requires some tweaks to fully optimize the OS to the new hardware. I think its worth the wait as there is nothing else available at the price point of $239 (using code CPP206). Come visit http://cherrypal.blogspot.com for updates. I am an anticipated fan with interests in cloud computing, green washing, sustainability and cheap, reliable connectivity.
This article was amazing.
Man, if cloud computing finds its way to light, this will absolutely mean a birth of a new age of computing.
Let’s just wish for the best.
And thanks for your efforts.
So, what is the difference of Cloud computing and just using a flash drive with Portable Apps/U3 on it? I work at a State College and am on 5 diffrent computers through out the week. The concept of cloud computing sounds awesome until you take into every point you make.
My Portable Apps flash drive solves all of that. I get the benifit of cloud computing’s mobility with the advantages of fast processor speeds and local programs and data. And i”m not the only one who feels that way. Every student i have shown now to use their U3 drive have instantly loved it. They simply love the concept of having all their data and favorite programs on a flash device and taking it where every they want.
Don’t get me wrong, cloud computing is great in concept but the flaws with today’s technology level are just to great. I don’t trust ANYONE with all my data, no matter what their track record is.
Perhaps the question should be when are we going to see the rise of “Flash Computing”. With the price of Flash drives getting cheaper and cheaper for larger amounts of data (and if a Flash doesn’t do it for you, just get a USB Self Powered Hard Drive) it is more then feasible.
[…] blog Dawningvalley has a very probing article up on the site on certain aspects of cloud computing and virtual […]
Omar, thanks man. Comments like this keep me writing.
Barron, I have a U3, which I dislike. But what I do like about it is that you can get rid of U3, so I installed John Haller’s portable apps.
I think Haller’s approach is the best of both worlds. Any app, same power, but no security flaws. The problem is that you need to bring the drive with you, can’t lose it, and is platform-dependent. But with Wine, the last is basically fixed. And the first two are pretty easy to fix: just don’t be stupid.
Why do people think of this as an either/or thing? As if the cloud will ‘win’ and eliminate the desktop? The cloud is just another tool. Cloud computing is great for some things, not for others. You will continue to choose one or the other for specific tasks. The cloud will probably have a lot of success in areas that are convenience oriented and not too dependent on large data files or fast transfer feeds. Like the things that Google apps are doing now: it’s great to have your calendar accessible and CERTAIN docs and spreadsheets and be able to check all your email addresses from gMail from different computers or from a cell phone with just a browser. Or from a friend’s cell phone or a computer in a hotel lobby. It’s great to be able to collaborate and share your calendar and certain photos and projects with different people. Are you going to edit HD video in the cloud and trust time-sensitive, critical or secretive work to the cloud or solely to the cloud? Probably not. But it will be easy to host your own data server, and tiny portable computers are getting cheaper and faster all the time.
Art, good point. The point I’m trying to refute is that the computer will probably not being going completely into the cloud any time soon. But I definitely agree that the cloud is very useful as an add-on to complement the offline computer (I use Gmail as my main email client).
By Dan D. Gutierrez
CEO of HostedDatabase.com,
Excellent article! When my firm launched the web’s first Database-as-a-Service offering in 1999, we realized early on that uptime and security were going to be high on our customer’s list of considerations for using our technology. Fast forward nearly 10 years, and those are still the most important issues. In these terms, the SLA is still king for SaaS.
your WD harddisk costs you a lot more than the 43.99 USD, it makes no sense to compare the cloud subscription price with the buying price of a hardware unit, you have to compare the subscription price with the total cost of ownership for creating the full service you get, when you subscribe in the cloud. In the case of online storage, this includes backup, the time you need for recovery, for maintanance and so on. I don’t have time for all this, i just wan’t to store my data, want to access it from anywhere and wan’t to be sure, that it is backuped and that somenone cares if the system is down, without my intervention, that’s why I would rather store my data in the clound than on a harddisk owned by me. Access is key, not ownership…
but you are right, the computer will not disapear soon, but it will in many cases nothing more than the interface to the cloud services…
Dan, yeah, that’s definitely true. How are you guys planning on fixing these problems (if you can reveal them publicly
).
Andreas, that’s true. But on the other hand, there’s the transfer speeds. Backing up to a hard drive is fairly fast. But the cloud? It takes forever to upload/download one movie (and that over a fairly fast broadband connection). So speed will eventually balance out the TCO, in my opinion anyway.
It’s definitely true that hard drive prices are cheaper than online storage, but having a back-up offsite is extremely important in case of burglary, fire, etc.
That’s definitely true. You don’t need a paid cloud service to do that, though. A lot of sites, like Xdrive, will give you enough for crucial documents for free.
Except that AOL is shuttering Xdrive
But it’s true, you can probably squeak by with a free site for just your crucial documents.
I would highly recommend Box.net, which seems to be growing and improving their service at a good pace, and offers 1 GB of free space.
[…] Check it out! […]
I use lower powered computers all the time. I actually happen to be typing this from my highest spec machine (Dell Inspiron 1501-1GB RAM-AMD Turion 64X2), but my other machines are much less powerful. My desktops are a eMachines W4885 (P4/2.8GHz) and HP Pavillion 6535 (Celeron/466MHz). I can use these machines on a daily basis for many tasks. I do not necessarily use the heaviest software- I use Konqueror instead of Firefox, I can’t have much open when I use OpenOffice, and so forth- but a lot of tasks can be done with them. The key is to use a lightweight DE that consumes almost no resources for the 466MHz. I run Enlightenment on Debian k/FreeBSD.
I am looking for a usb flashstick big enough and cheap enough to put Ubuntu on and still have some room for my stuff! I realize that most ‘office’ software is on Google anyway so that frees up some room. Mostly, I want to carry all my stuff and plug it in and use any computer anywhere, school, library, office, home, even jail cells if I get in trouble! I want to carry the flash unit on my key-chain with my car keys and always be in touch with the web, word processors, storagew space on the web, banking and bank accounts, web stores - the works?
[…] to this post, Microsoft and others are touting the idea of “cloud computing” (I’ve never heard […]
Jake, that’s true. But try running Konqueror via the cloud, and even that will slow down.
Uncle, sounds like you’d need at least 2GB on there. I love my SanDisk Cruzer, just make sure you get U3 off of it.
Today I signed up for ‘Ghost’, just for the heck of it. It has 5GB of storage, bundled apps. bundled DE, the works. It’s trying to replace ‘normal’ OSs. It’s very impressive, but as I used it I just kept thinking of this article:
*It’s very slow/laggy/jerky.
*I don’t have the time to upload all of my documents/media to it.
And finally–why do I need it? I’m not idiosyncratic enough to want a consistent desktop wherever I am, and I’m pretty good at anticipating what documents I’ll want and emailing them to myself. If there’s anything big, I always have USB 2.0
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