Cloud == Sucker?

Carla Schroder writes in Linux Today —

As much as we warn about privacy, security, and reliability problems in cloud computing, it’s coming and we can’t stop it. So do we join the cloud party? Heck no.

…

Well here we are on the threshold of this very thing, and now the geeks are complaining and warning against it. Why? Because we like to be perverse? Well maybe that is part of it. But for me the biggest problem is trust. I don’t trust many tech vendors because they haven’t given me any reasons to trust them, and plenty of reasons to not trust them. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Why would I entrust them with my data when they do not respect my privacy or the privacy of my data? In the US personal privacy is not protected, and vendors who mangle and lose your personal or business data pay no penalty or recourse, other than bearing the brunt of your peeve. Marketers are all about privacy invasion, as much as they can get away with, and collecting, mining, and buying and selling us. Even worse, service providers roll over at the slightest “boo”, releasing customer records at toothless DMCA takedown requests, and caving in to law enforcement without even making them go through due process. Where are all those attack lawyers when they can do some good for a change?

Carla has a point, and many times I have the same sentiment. But we should not cloud the Cloud as a technology vs that of a business practice using the Cloud. If Skype or Google has an outage it is from this observers point of view little from technology loss as simple human error. Small consequence, but an important one overall.

Any company today has little excuse not to consider internalizing the Cloud. That is bring the Cloud in house. If you have a half dozen servers or more then the company can pull it off. Start with a simple virtualization effort sufficient to free up 2-3 servers. Then consider a Cloud service like Eucalyptus. (There are others as well.) Get those nodes working then port some of those virtualized services over to your own private Cloud.

Trust issues disappear. Or they should, otherwise you have personnel problems larger than your considerations of a Cloud provider. Your results on your level of Nines you require is limited by your pocketbook. Your ability to keep working is also limited to your local networking maintenance if you are in a single location.

But Clouds don’t stop at the company door. Dual core PC’s are generally the norm walking out the door even for individuals. We are almost on the cusp of that happening to the 4 core chips as the price curve continues to drop away on the Intel and AMD product lines. At that point a Cloud in a box is a reality for individuals as well. It won’t be quite as Nines capable as a couple of discrete machines due to single point of failure issues. But a micro Cloud would permit higher levels of service, SOA type backup/restore becomes possible, and harnessing 3-4 cpu’s to a single task is simpler.

So as always, there are means to the madness.

Linky.