The Future of the Cloud
By Eric Bieller
13 December 2010 | Category: Asides
The cloud represents a paradigm-shift in traditional computing. It’s a scalable, seemingly infinite source of resources to grow and expand your web application. The cloud also represents a shift from desktop software to web based software that is primarily accessed through your web browser.
The basic concept of cloud computing dates back to the 1960s. John McCarthy stated that “computation may someday be organized as a public utility” and most of the characteristics of cloud computing were explored in Douglas Parkhill’s book “The Challenge of the Computer Utility” in 1966.
Illusion of Infinite Supply
With the proliferation of cloud storage services like Amazon S3 and The Rackspace Cloud, it is becoming commonplace for web apps to be served up from an ever-expandable pay-per-gigabyte cloud service. These services create an illusion of infinite supply by automatically provisioning and applying resources only when they are needed. This makes for greater versatility and scalability among web services and platforms.
What Makes the Cloud so Useful?
We are slowly leaving the age of storing movies, music and documents on physical pieces of media like hard drives, disks and thumb drives. Any piece of data stored in the cloud is remote and can be accessed from anywhere as long as there’s an Internet connection and a web browser.
Using an application through your web browser has many advantages over a traditional desktop application. Since all modern browsers interpret the same languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., the development process is much more standardized and can be distributed very easily.
Thanks to client-based libraries like MooTools, jQuery, Prototype, and modern programming techniques like AJAX, the web browser greatly improves coding standardization on the desktop, similar to what platforms like Java and Adobe Air have done.
Transition of all Things to the Cloud
Though it may not seem practical right now, we are slowly transitioning to a total cloud based solution for data storage. A good example of this might be documents and word processing software. Google Docs has essentially replaced my desktop word-processing software, providing me with an accessible, cloud-based solution.
Now I can access my documents from anywhere and collaborate with colleagues in real time and I no longer have to worry about software updates or hard drive failure. In my view, this is an amazing leap in computing and an obvious sign of the important role that cloud-based applications will play in the near future.
Gaming and the Cloud
In addition to word processors, there are a multitude of cloud-based gaming platforms and some of them are just plain awesome.
OnLive recently launched the beta of their gaming-on-demand platform which processes video games remotely while delivering a video feed of the game directly to your computer as you are playing. What’s amazing about this service is that it allows you to play high quality modern games but requires nothing more than a run of the mill PC.
The service has some bandwidth and response time issues but as the kinks are worked out, hopefully the service will be refined and become more practical. It is already turning out to be a viable gaming option for casual gamers.
On a different front of the gaming industry, Blizzard’s Battle.net service also provides some cloud solutions for gaming. Blizzard’s recently launched RTS, Starcraft 2 stores all of your saved games, stats and replays on Battle.net. If you need to reinstall or use a different computer, simply log into your account and all your info is there. This seems like a logical step for both PC and Console gaming, solving a dilemma that has plagued gamers since gaming began.
Steam is also a gaming service worthy of note which integrates with games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and stores game info in the steam cloud, eliminating the need for local storage. Steam also has a self contained marketplace where gamers can purchase new games and download them at any time. For some gamers, this has pretty much replaced physical video game media.
Unfortunately there are too many great cloud apps and platforms to go in to detail about so here is a quick list of some of the ones I think are promising:
Image Editors
- Photoshop Express – Adobe’s web (and mobile) version of Photoshop.
- Picnik – Web based image editor with both a free and premium version.
Online Backup
- Mozy – A good option for remote backup at an affordable price.
- Carbonite – Another good option for simple, affordable backup.
Music and Video
- Pandora – One of the more popular internet radio applications. If you haven’t checked it out already, you definitely should.
- Last.fm – A competitor of Pandora with a similar feature set.
- Grooveshark – Not as popular but it’s gaining in traffic. Allows you to search and play specific songs at will.
- Hulu – A popular web based TV network with shows content from NBC, ABC, Fox and others.
- Fancast – Provides a similar service as Hulu. Owned by Comcast. Offers renting of content.
- Revision3 – Online TV Network with lots of cool shows ranging from tech to tea.
With the popularity of applications like these growing daily, it’s a positive indicator for the cloud-computing evangelists.
The Dark Side of the Cloud
While the cloud offers a ton of benefits, there are also some important issues that need to be taken into consideration. When your personal data is somewhere other than on your own computer’s hard drive, it may be compromised with you having any idea. This raises some security issues that can certainly be overcome but are none-the-less kinda scary.
We also have to acknowledge that companies might not always be truthful about how they are using your data. Basically, anything that is stored remotely is up for grabs by the company running the server.
A reasonable privacy policy might help put your mind at ease but I wouldn’t put it past any large company to use, share or manipulate your data in a way which they did not disclose to you.
Conclusion
The transition of all data to the cloud just might be inevitable given its current popularity and proliferation. This transition will represent a new era of computing that may do away with physical media completely. Depending on which side you are on this could be good, bad or bittersweet but it is certainly on the horizon.
What do you think about the cloud? Is the complete transition inevitable or is it just an Internet fad that will die out over time? Have some cool web/cloud apps to share? Tell us about it in the comments section below. Thanks a lot for reading!
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