Good point. In that case your computer may become completely useless.

Privacy issues aside, there are two many things that may go wrong for me to consider cloud computing as a viable option.

Thanks, I'd overlooked that detail. Usually Amazon has a "Look inside" feature so you can skim the index and check out the introduction before buying.

PS: you're a saint for taking the time to write that "wall of text" in the way you did

PPS: Kenny, there is a thing called a "library", it usually has a ton of books in it. You don't necessarily have to buy all the books you read.

Thank you. What Kenny is probably way too young to realize is that the "cloud" is the third or fourth attempt at a failed computing model. In the beginning there was big iron. Mainframes. The computers and the data were controlled by IT legions and guarded jealously. They died an ugly, and widely cheered, death at the hands of PCs. Then came "client-server" which was really just mainframes with a new name and died for pretty much the same reasons. Then came SAAS, which really hasn't died yet, but is once again a repackaging of the old mainframe-terminal model. And the cloud is just the latest iteration of that. All of these suffer from the same basic flaws, namely that networks aren't reliable enough and putting data out of your reach means someone else controls it. The people promoting these models, and reanimating the dead under new names, are generally doing it because they like to be in control. In my opinion, those are the people you really have to watch out for.

Ummm ... none of the aforementioned "failed attempts" are actually
dead, and in a corporate setting there's no such thing as "your data".
Sharing & collaboration it is what it's all about.

That said: handing all ones data over to some service provider who
may or may not be able to a) provide contingency and b) security
against others who one shares the cloud with scares me "sh*less".



Cheers,
Tink

Yup, very true. In a nutshell, giving someone else stewardship of anything you own gives the steward the power to hold that thing hostage--whether by accident or malicious intent.

Thank you! I think you are the first person ever to risk being struck down by lightning by comparing anything I did to something saintly. I'd stay away from trees and long metal rods for a little while though... just in case.

@(Hangdog and Tinkster):
I'll agree with Tinkster that they haven't died yet, but by the same token, they are certainly used by people or groups that want to maintain control. That is definitely what the architecture is all about: consolidation. There are places where the control/consolidation is warranted (e.g. a corporate environment). In fact, I've toyed around with the idea of setting up a terminal server at home. But that goes back to Hangdog's point that I, personally, would retain control. And obviously, both of you agree that this architecture is not advisable as a general solution for personal computing.

Now, being the math freak that I sometimes am, I "did the math" regarding uptime just to be fair about my original "four points of failure" post. So, assuming that all four points of failure have an independent uptime of 99.9% and a user accesses data once per day, there would be a >50% chance that any given user would experience a "data inaccessible" problem within 174 days. In other words, a 50-50 chance in about 6 months. I won't comment on what I personally think about that number, but just let it speak for itself.

The only thing I will mention is that it also does not account for other, unforeseeable issues such as the bankruptcy/illegal activity events.

In case anyone wants to look over my shoulder regarding the math--I am a bit out of practice from my discrete math course:
EDIT:
After doing a recalculation using a slightly different method, I got a different result: 185 days. It seems I am rusty, and I may go pull that text book to review. Still, 174 days and 185 days--same ballpark.

EDIT2:
And for comparison purposes, the calculation for a 50-50 "data inaccessible" chance when data is kept locally on a machine with 99.9% uptime: 693 days (or about 23 months).

Ah, but a man can dream, can't he?

Oh believe me, you're preaching to the choir on that one. I've made my living for several years working to get researchers to share their data in a corporate setting. Largely due to the fact that IT and biologists rarely see eye-to-eye, most of the data actually ends up as "private" because it is stored in such abhorrent formats as Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Or worse upon occasion.

The funny thing is, the cloud really doesn't begin to address the kind of integration I need to deal with. People already share documents, but the documents rarely contain a full set of the information needed to actually make sense of the data.

This is a massive limitation on any tool. You can install all the collaboration tools you can think of, but if the users don't use them correctly they are essentially useless. Even if you lay down strict guidelines on how to use them, unless they are able to be regularly "policed" then they will fall apart.

Ideally, when it comes on line, Skynet will work with us on these matters instead of killing us all

I kind of glossed over a lot of the posts here, but I will put my two cents in anyway and say I will never put private/personal information in the cloud. It is stupid for anyone to do so. And that includes social networking sites and the like.

Anyone that thinks the data is not being mined needs to wake up and smell the coffee. If anyone thinks that the government will not step in and use that data as they see fit they are fools.

I am not a conspiracy theory kind of person, but I am not blind either.