Cloud computing

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  • ********

    Well, it seems that cloud computing - or scalable hosting, or whatever you want to call it - is taking off. The term is a bit bogus (clouds?? .. - I mean, WTF?!) - but the idea seems pretty neat. Places like Amazon EC2 seem to be doing a good job.

    Do any of you use cloud-based solutions for hosting or rendering?

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  • boobs0

    I'm thinking of trying it. What's the upside? What's the downside?

  • comicsans0

    The most obvious downside is you lose access to your data if you have no network connection. Also if you use it for storage you have no guarantees as to the quality, if any, of the backup procedures.

    Cloud based services (e.g. online billing/accounting) are even more risky, if you leave your data with someone make sure you know how you'll get it back in a usable form. And don't get me started on legal jurisdiction.

    • I think you have to do backups yrself -> CC transactions can't be performed on servers due to legislation afaik
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  • ********
    0

    Hey boobs - I'm thinking the same ..

    I guess the upside is scalability / portability / flexibility / no fixed contract

    Downsides include:
    * everything is stored with one corp - privacy / lack of control maybe?
    * need decent sys. admin skills
    * I've heard that current DB technology doesn't work too well with cloud solutions, but quite a few vendors are producing DB variants specifically for cloud use (https://launchpad.net/drizzle is one such example)

    From what I gather, the idea is you choose a server image (AMI -> http://developer.amazonwebservic…) and then get Amazon to boot it for you.

    E.g. I use drupal for some projects, and some guys have created an optimised AMI for drupal -> meaning that we'll soon be able to have a scalable almost instantaneous way to serve heavy-traffic drupal sites. The same kind of thing's happening for all kinds of application.