Personal computing discussed

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Will the cloud computing take over?

Yes
7 (7%)
Yes for enterprise
13 (13%)
Yes for home
4 (4%)
Hard to say
14 (14%)
No
49 (51%)
Cheese!!
10 (10%)
 
Total votes: 97
 
Madman
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Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:09 pm

Reading the IT news I stumbled upon yet another glorification of could computing - http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... ter-Center

And I'm still not sold on this. IMHO, the cloud computing is sucky idea, and works under some limited circumstances at best. Yet, I haven't been in extensive discussion about this topic involving more than 3 people.

There is no arguing that central data stores will be more pronounced in coming years. I recently brought gigabit NAS device for home use for sole reason to have Thunderbird profile that's accessible from multiple PCs and in dual-boot setups (Windows/Ubuntu). It also adds a piece of mind for one more place of backups, RAID 1 HDDs and allows for easier photo and document sharing, which I can now process on a laptop while sitting on a couch or on the primary PC.

But Microsoft/Google/Amazon/Megaupload/Steam etc. glorified cloud is super ugly solution at best if you ask me.

1) Privacy and security sucks, they are targeted constantly, there are leaks and failures, CC numbers, user database leaks, etc.
2) The services can go off-line without your vote at all. If you had legit files on Megaupload, sucks for you. The same can happen to any of the cloud providers
3) The cost, if you're enterprise, you must be super "genius" to go for AWS or something like that as your primary data store. As security, costs and usability stinks compared to collocation. Unless your demand tends to spike to 1000% over short periods of time.
4) Always on-line applications suck. I'm using Waze for navigation lately, and that thing constantly looses Internet connection, cannot download maps, complains about servers busy and so on. Completely kills any usability compared to any preinstalled software. Only reason why I still use is realtime notifications and report about conditions.
5) Software leasing, Steam, EA, etc., quickly caught the bonus of the cloud for shareholders, we will lease software so that users who pay 50$ won't own anything at all. We can terminate licenses, force EOL for products, disable resale, and push constant stream of day 1 DLCs for everything.

What are your opinions on all this Cloud thing?
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Captain Ned
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:22 pm

As a regulator, I say one thing:

Venezuelan Beaver Cheese

On a more pertinent note, there was an article in my local paper today about how the VT Dept of Taxes is going after business-level cloud users here in VT for failure to pay use taxes on cloud software hosted out of the state and is looking for taxes and penalties back to 2006. Not trying to pull an R&P; just illuminating that the questions to be asked and answered go far beyond the obvious data security issues.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/arti ... puting-tax?
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:36 pm

I find myself saying this with increasing frequency lately: Letting someone else manage your data means you no longer control your data. If you think about it, it is also effectively a throwback to the mainframe/terminal paradigm, putting everyone at the mercy of the "high priests" who run the datacenters.

Cloud computing already has replaced standalone software in many cases. It can make sense for certain applications... and does not for others. As long as people don't try to shove a square peg into a round hole (i.e. use cloud based solutions for applications where they are inappropriate), and are aware of the security and privacy issues, it has its place.

I sometimes wonder whether the convergence of IPv6, better wireless connectivity, and more powerful mobile devices will eventually spark yet another paradigm shift, where the pendulum swings back towards decentralized systems again. This paradigm shift won't come from the established players (telecoms and content providers) though; they've got way too much invested in being the gatekeepers and traffic cops to turn control back over to the users.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:42 pm

Until not only our infrastructure but also our service provider's bandwidth limits are vastly improved, then this idea will not set sail. If anything, that is the one good thing coming from "in the cloud", it's motivation for this to happen.

But for me personally, I don't trust my data "in the cloud". Some keyboard settings, some shortcuts, my achievements list; sure. My audio library; eh maybe. My entire financial portfolio, my business secrets, videos of my trip to Vegas ? Noooo way am I trusting that with "the cloud".
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:57 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I find myself saying this with increasing frequency lately: Letting someone else manage your data means you no longer control your data. If you think about it, it is also effectively a throwback to the mainframe/terminal paradigm, putting everyone at the mercy of the "high priests" who run the datacenters.

And this is the exact argument we make with the entities I regulate. It barely passes GLBA and I'm pretty damn sure it'd never pass HIPAA data security standards. On top of that comes the SLAs, the need for a non-cloud local-copy total backup, the bandwidth costs, the designed-in inability to know exactly which server farm holds your data, and I digress.

It's one thing to store some stuff in a Dropbox account. Cloud as mission-critical (and mission-catastrophic) isn't to a point where I feel comfortable with it as a regulator.
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AntiSp4wn
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:04 pm

Madman wrote:
Reading the IT news I stumbled upon yet another glorification of could computing - http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... ter-Center

And I'm still not sold on this. IMHO, the cloud computing is sucky idea, and works under some limited circumstances at best. Yet, I haven't been in extensive discussion about this topic involving more than 3 people.

There is no arguing that central data stores will be more pronounced in coming years. I recently brought gigabit NAS device for home use for sole reason to have Thunderbird profile that's accessible from multiple PCs and in dual-boot setups (Windows/Ubuntu). It also adds a piece of mind for one more place of backups, RAID 1 HDDs and allows for easier photo and document sharing, which I can now process on a laptop while sitting on a couch or on the primary PC.

But Microsoft/Google/Amazon/Megaupload/Steam etc. glorified cloud is super ugly solution at best if you ask me.

1) Privacy and security sucks, they are targeted constantly, there are leaks and failures, CC numbers, user database leaks, etc.
2) The services can go off-line without your vote at all. If you had legit files on Megaupload, sucks for you. The same can happen to any of the cloud providers
3) The cost, if you're enterprise, you must be super "genius" to go for AWS or something like that as your primary data store. As security, costs and usability stinks compared to collocation. Unless your demand tends to spike to 1000% over short periods of time.
4) Always on-line applications suck. I'm using Waze for navigation lately, and that thing constantly looses Internet connection, cannot download maps, complains about servers busy and so on. Completely kills any usability compared to any preinstalled software. Only reason why I still use is realtime notifications and report about conditions.
5) Software leasing, Steam, EA, etc., quickly caught the bonus of the cloud for shareholders, we will lease software so that users who pay 50$ won't own anything at all. We can terminate licenses, force EOL for products, disable resale, and push constant stream of day 1 DLCs for everything.

What are your opinions on all this Cloud thing?


I'm a web developer cloud enthusiast, so you can bet where my guess is.

I would describe the move to the cloud as inevitable, and I'm bemused by those who don't see this shift coming when it's already well underway. The benefits are so significant I can't see anything changing that.

To address the negatives you described specifically: the security risk argument is silly, heck a Chromebook is the most secure system made commercially available ever. Thin clients by nature can be made far more secure than your windows or mac will ever be. All that said security has not advanced as quickly as our demand for it's use has, once that catches up all systems will be made more secure.

Your second point about up-time doesn't work either. Google's up-time is better than any normal mortal could hope to achieve. Sure you could build a system in your home with some fancy backup technology, but then your house burns down. In all the years I've used Google's services I haven't personally suffered one shortage--indeed few have. Yet in that time I've had hard drives go, power supplies, and all the other woes that befall the common man. Sure I spent the time with RAID setups, external harddrives, home servers, off site backups, but nothing remotely as fast to recover from as if a Chromebook died on you. And all of your data is constantly backed up with greater redundancy than the home user could ever achieve.

In at least the short term, Enterprises will find great benefits in their own private clouds. Using Citrix type solutions in combination with thin clients, chromebook-esque type systems if you will, offers massive IT savings.

Web apps can run locally. I'm typing on a Chromebook right now, I have a slew of apps that work perfectly offline. This technology is just starting to really take hold now and the W3C has a ways to go yet on standards, but expect to see a huge boom in them.

Lastly SAAS on the kind of scale we're talking about now is it's infancy. Steam is very much a local app that downloads locally installed programs. Being connected to the internet doesn't make it a cloud app. The Chrome Web Store and a game like Bastion would be the cloud version of what you're talking about.



Edit:
To the concerns about losing control over your data there is no doubt our laws are way behind the times. There is also no doubt that individuals need to be review the policies of whatever cloud providers they choose. But now I could list all the issues with local software and local data and the problem here is that in the local route the problems are fundamental. Or better put, the cloud model is fundamentally superior in terms of access, data redundancy, etc. That laws and terms of service agreements need to catch up is a far more solvable problem than harddrives dying, house fires, etc. And you still have to deal with the licensing agreements of local software, still have to hedge your bets on what companies software you're going to purchase and what kind of support you'll get. Some problems are universal.
Last edited by AntiSp4wn on Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:05 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
I'm a web developer cloud enthusiast, so you can bet where my guess is.

I would describe the move to the cloud as inevitable, and I'm bemused by those who don't see this shift coming when it's already well underway. The benefits are so significant I can't see anything changing that.

Have you ever developed anything for a regulated financial institution?
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:15 pm

No.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:18 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
No.

The book of related standards is several hundred pages long. And we regulators check each and every single item.

Yes, cloud makes sense for some. In my world it's nothing more than another untested unverifiable danger that can easily be controlled by keeping all data local.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:20 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
To address the negatives you described specifically: the security risk argument is silly, heck a Chromebook is the most secure system made commercially available ever. Thin clients by nature can be made far more secure than your windows or mac will ever be. All that said security has not advanced as quickly as our demand for it's use has, once that catches up all systems will be made more secure.

We are talkong about Steam account leaks, Sony? account leaks, Go dady? or whatever, there were at least 5 major companies that have been compromised in last two years. With whole databases floating in the network, at least if you can trust the press.

Then, for AWS it was common that if your IP was redirected, you could still keep receiving IP and http requests for other customer domains. Including authentication headers and so on if I'm not mistaken.

AntiSp4wn wrote:
Your second point about up-time doesn't work either. Google's up-time is better than any normal mortal could hope to achieve. Sure you could build a system in your home with some fancy backup technology, but then your house burns down. In all the years I've used Google's services I haven't personally suffered one shortage--indeed few have. Yet in that time I've had hard drives go, power supplies, and all the other woes that befall the common man. Sure I spent the time with RAID setups, external harddrives, home servers, off site backups, but nothing remotely as fast to recover from as if a Chromebook died on you. And all of your data is constantly backed up with greater redundancy than the home user could ever achieve.

Google have their own collocation centers, I cannot comment on their strategy. But for other services see: http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/231300384 ... europe.htm That incident involved customer data loss, and prolonged downtime.

AntiSp4wn wrote:
In at least the short term, Enterprises will find great benefits in their own private clouds. Using Citrix type solutions in combination with thin clients, chromebook-esque type systems if you will, offers massive IT savings.
That's a balance between cloud and a VPN. I wouldn't call VPN/SSH/SSL connection to enterprise owned and enterprise administered collocation facility a cloud.

AntiSp4wn wrote:
offers massive IT savings

A good read - http://chrischandler.name/the-real-cost ... ud-hosting And this is the same conclusion I got when analyzing the alternatives. Collocation is cheaper, safer and more secure.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:22 pm

It likely wouldn't pass muster for permanent storage of any sort of classified data either, encrypted or not. You cannot truly appreciate the meaning of the phrase "data security paranoia" until you've dealt with that world.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:26 pm

just brew it! wrote:
It likely wouldn't pass muster for permanent storage of any sort of classified data either, encrypted or not. You cannot truly appreciate the meaning of the phrase "data security paranoia" until you've dealt with that world.

Whoever wrote GLBA's data security standards obviously spent some time in 3-letter land.
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Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:29 pm

just brew it! wrote:
It likely wouldn't pass muster for permanent storage of any sort of classified data either, encrypted or not. You cannot truly appreciate the meaning of the phrase "data security paranoia" until you've dealt with that world.

Lol, yea, like the feeling that even after full DOD wipe, you would still prefer the drive to be melted, if it contained something really important or private. Even if single zero fill is more than enough to completely wipe the data. :D

Like, what if it glitched? :lol:
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:31 pm

Madman wrote:
Like, what if it glitched? :lol:

That's why any drive to be decommissioned meets the drill.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:32 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
AntiSp4wn wrote:
No.

The book of related standards is several hundred pages long. And we regulators check each and every single item.

Yes, cloud makes sense for some. In my world it's nothing more than another untested unverifiable danger that can easily be controlled by keeping all data local.


I don't know/understand what you do or what you're talking about so I hesitate to put my foot too far in my mouth.

At a fifty-thousand-foot level the cloud is definitely not untested or unverified. It's extremely robust, powerful, stable (footnote: in the proper hands). As I mentioned businesses can and do run local clouds that benefit from the same principles as general cloud computing. From a purely technological perspective, the cloud is superior. Now, is it definitively superior in every way for all people and businesses today? Not even remotely close, there is so much that has yet to evolve. We're just now seeing the early seedlings of what's to come. But if we're looking at the pieces that are in place today and prognosticating about developments five, ten, fifteen years out I think the direction is clear: the cloud will supplant local apps and data.

I can't speculate on how your niche industry and the laws that regulate it fit in here other than to crudely point at where there is clear technological superiority and mumble about how we have electronic privacy laws governing affairs today that were written during the Reagan years.
 
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:37 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
I don't know/understand what you do or what you're talking about so I hesitate to put my foot too far in my mouth.

Let's put it this way. I expect my regulated entities to know, in meatspace, exactly where all of their data is stored every second of every day. In this regulator's opinion it is impossible to meet the data security standards of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA, and the defining data-security standards for US financial institutions) if you don't know this. There is no way to audit the cloud. There is no way to verify physical security (i.e. locked doors, human access controls, all that) of the place(s) holding your data if the cloud storage contract (as is customary for cloud contracts) explicitly denies you the right to know in what data center(s) your data resides.

As JBI said, if you don't know where your data is you have no way of controlling it. We regulators demand that our institutions control their data.
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Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:43 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
At a fifty-thousand-foot level the cloud is definitely not untested or unverified. It's extremely robust, powerful, stable (footnote: in the proper hands).

So far all vendors screw up constantly, with incredible regularity.

There are multiple issues as well, as soon as data leaves the secured facility, over SSH or whatever, it's only as secure as the endpoint, or man-in-the-middle.
If the storage is remounted to another customer, the data can easily leak if it's not zero wiped. And there is no way to make sure cloud vendor does that.
If the data is accessed via one factor authentication like password + user-name, it's very likely someone can use the leaked databases to pick existing user-names and passwords, people tend to reuse them everywhere unfortunately.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:45 pm

To the point about databases getting hacked, it certainly happens and has happened far too often as of late. I go back to our demand for technology increasing more rapidly than our ability to evolve proper security standards. But now quantify the amount of data stolen by way of local malware. Security standards need to improve radically, whether we're talking cloud or local. And the thing about living locally is you're still going to have your PayPal account and your Sony account and whatever else, so how much risk are you really mitigating? The only way to really be safe is to unplug. And then a meteor hits your house.

Today I have all of my information in the cloud. It's a calculated risk. One that frankly is a much lower risk than keeping my files locally. I still keep a local backup, because I'm very anal about my data, but I recognize that my own best practices are inferior to the googleplex, and that with complex passwords, 2-step phone verification, encrypted connections, a quality properly configured router, that I am well ahead of the game. And if I access this data with a Chromebook, well that entire machine is encrypted as well. If the Chromebook breaks, I open up a new one and am right back where I left off with, from anywhere in the world. And that's just data security and access, not even touching upon the software side that this thread was more so about.
 
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:49 pm

I'm going to guess that many of us can't comment much about it due to NDA.
However, i'll say this, if you work in .Net and you haven't taken a good, hard look at Windows Azure, then you should.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:52 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
One that frankly is a much lower risk than keeping my files locally. I still keep a local backup, because I'm very anal about my data, but I recognize that my own best practices are inferior to the googleplex, and that with complex passwords, 2-step phone verification, encrypted connections, a quality properly configured router, that I am well ahead of the game. And if I access this data with a Chromebook, well that entire machine is encrypted as well. If the Chromebook breaks, I open up a new one and am right back where I left off with, from anywhere in the world. And that's just data security and access, not even touching upon the software side that this thread was more so about.

You can use bitlocker encrypted drives with Windows, or AES encrypted volumes for Linux, + router + firewall + limited user + patched PC and that setup will be way, way more secure than online solution. Of course that goes down the drain as soon as someone starts downloading pr0n on that machine via admin account.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:57 pm

danny e. wrote:
I'm going to guess that many of us can't comment much about it due to NDA.
However, i'll say this, if you work in .Net and you haven't taken a good, hard look at Windows Azure, then you should.

I don't think NDA is an issue with cloud providers, as most data is widely available via press, cloud service support forums and advertisement materials.

So far I have no idea what could make Azure more secure than any other cloud service. Unknown facilities, with unknown administrators, with unknown storage wipe procedures, and unknown internal router configurations.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:00 pm

Madman wrote:
danny e. wrote:
I'm going to guess that many of us can't comment much about it due to NDA.
However, i'll say this, if you work in .Net and you haven't taken a good, hard look at Windows Azure, then you should.

I don't think NDA is an issue with cloud providers, as most data is widely available via press, cloud service support forums and advertisement materials.

:roll: we'll leave it there.


also, for those saying they don't want their data in the cloud... sure, I can see the point to a degree for some personal things.

However, you get a pay check right?
A large number of you do and a large number use ADP.
So, you're pretty much all up in that cloud already whether you knew it or not.
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:03 pm

Madman wrote:
AntiSp4wn wrote:
One that frankly is a much lower risk than keeping my files locally. I still keep a local backup, because I'm very anal about my data, but I recognize that my own best practices are inferior to the googleplex, and that with complex passwords, 2-step phone verification, encrypted connections, a quality properly configured router, that I am well ahead of the game. And if I access this data with a Chromebook, well that entire machine is encrypted as well. If the Chromebook breaks, I open up a new one and am right back where I left off with, from anywhere in the world. And that's just data security and access, not even touching upon the software side that this thread was more so about.

You can use bitlocker encrypted drives with Windows, or AES encrypted volumes for Linux, + router + firewall + limited user + patched PC and that setup will be way, way more secure than online solution. Of course that goes down the drain as soon as someone starts downloading pr0n on that machine via admin account.


Of course you can. And then you use PSN, online banking, paypal, steam, and a hundred other online services. You're already in the cloud, you can't live without it. Just give in. :wink:

I feel like this thread has gone from "will the cloud replace stand alone software" -- which my argument is that it will given it's overwhelming advantages -- to an assault on the security of internet access itself. I recognize that many companies have been hacked, but unless you're willing to live without internet that's something you're going to have to put up with even in your local apps/data world (in addition to the lack of access to your files, the lesser redundancy, harddrive crashes, power surges...)
 
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:08 pm

Just realize that you're talking with people whose regulated institutions still have IBM mainframes running core apps coded in COBOL. We're slow to accept change. We'll wait for the first umpty-eleven cloud blowouts and the resulting enforceable and auditable cloud data security standards before dipping a toe in those waters.
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Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:11 pm

danny e. wrote:
However, you get a pay check right?
A large number of you do and a large number use ADP.
So, you're pretty much all up in that cloud already whether you knew it or not.

Luckily these are few minor instances so far. Some financial info, some banking sites, with 2 factor authentication and security audits, but they don't have full profile. If we are talking about full cloud based storage, that means medical, private, business, financial, family, etc. information is there for taking, as soon as cloud provider slips.

We already had a wide scale financial information leak via government based online service in our country. IIRC, no one was found to be responsible.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/ ... 266241778/
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StuG
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:18 pm

I work in web-hosting and I think it's going to take center stage in the coming years. I don't think that it will ever be the only thing on the market, and dedicated solutions will always be around for the people that desire their own environment. I personally don't think any cloud-based solution has ever been attacked hard enough by hackers/countries/activist groups to really prove they are reliable from a security standpoint. If this ever happened, we would really get to see just how bad (or good) that type of environment can be. If one server gets hacked, that is one thing. If a cloud get's hacked you have effectively hacked 100 servers at once. As well, hacking a cloud increases the chance that you will stumble upon critical/useful data. If casual hackers around the world can break government firewalls, I'm sure they can do it to the cloud.
 
Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:24 pm

StuG wrote:
I work in web-hosting and I think it's going to take center stage in the coming years.

But why? It's a lot more expensive than collocation over 1 year period.
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just brew it!
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:28 pm

Madman wrote:
StuG wrote:
I work in web-hosting and I think it's going to take center stage in the coming years.

But why? It's a lot more expensive than collocation over 1 year period.

If your app doesn't require a heavy-duty server a cloud-based VM is a lot cheaper than co-location. It's also a lot more flexible, regardless of the size of server you need.
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Madman
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:31 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Madman wrote:
...

If your app doesn't require a heavy-duty server a cloud-based VM is a lot cheaper than co-location. It's also a lot more flexible, regardless of the size of server you need.

Still more expensive and less flexible than renting virtual server in collocation facility :roll: Nowadays they go for almost free.
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Flatland_Spider
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Re: Do you believe cloud will replace stand alone software?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:39 pm

AntiSp4wn wrote:
Today I have all of my information in the cloud. It's a calculated risk. One that frankly is a much lower risk than keeping my files locally. I still keep a local backup, because I'm very anal about my data, but I recognize that my own best practices are inferior to the googleplex, and that with complex passwords, 2-step phone verification, encrypted connections, a quality properly configured router, that I am well ahead of the game. And if I access this data with a Chromebook, well that entire machine is encrypted as well. If the Chromebook breaks, I open up a new one and am right back where I left off with, from anywhere in the world. And that's just data security and access, not even touching upon the software side that this thread was more so about.


You're data is worth zero dollars, so the risk is very small. When you start dealing with business critical IP worth several million dollars, at least, it's a huge risk.

You're doing some good things, but it's lipstick on a pig when you get serious about data security. You have access control, but not integrity and confidentiality. The meat of the matter is in the datacenter with physical and network security, and you can't verify anything in the cloud. It's called the cloud for a reason. It's an insecure, best effort service. It's meant to abstract everything to some APIs that can be consumed. You're not supposed to ask where your data is or who has access to it. If you want security, you have to start with physical security and work up, not the other way around.

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