All that you need to know about Cloud Computing, but never dared to ask

“We have to sell cloud services,” that phrase used to be the premise some years ago at a well-known technology multinational in which I worked. As mentioned in the previous article, market, magazines, expert consultants and certainly the CEO were invaded by marketing. The fashion by those times was taking customers to “cloud” without knowing why. Even today, I cannot think in other such categorical failure that year.

THE cloud computing BEFORE cloud computing

Fortunately, before anyone made “cloud computing” fashionable, it was somewhat a reality. We all had for example Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail e-mails or even basic webmails of our internet providers that offer 10 or 20 if our internet`s domain was under their management. Yes, I know what you are thinking, that was definitely not cool as talking as “cloud computing,” but it works.

Controversies

Most concerns regarding this focus on security, data privacy, regulation compliance, etc, etc.
I will try to rapidly mention some points:

Legal Issues

Up to a few months ago, Megaupload was a based-cloud service allowing us uploading files and getting access at thema anywhere. There was no need of thinking in internet links, permits or hard drive` space, we uploaded a file and it was available. Finally, we all know the end of the story, FBI closing the site and millions of users unable to have access to their files. Nothing prevents/prohibits that such actions are carried out in other app providers or cloud infrastructure. this legally means that despite using some cloud service, if it is being used for other users for other purposes considered illegal, we will be in danger of losing all data.

Regulations

If the Cloud`s origin is in US, we should ask ourselves, Why do we have to obey non-existent geography rules that increase costs considerably? Probably, the provided services obey US/Europe regulations. If my company is small and local or even regional, it is necessary adding the cost of complying with complex rules that by now are not applied to this geography.

Security

Who audits my cloud provider? Who knows if he is going to comply? Wikileaks showed that nothing is secure, everything is vulnerable even US Embassy classified data.

Common Sense

These are some common sense points that readers can analyzed:

Life expectancy

Cloud Computing provider`s companies will continue within 2, 5 or 10 years?

Costs

By applying common sense, saving`s arguments, are at least fairly debatable. Saving with license costs assuming the
software provider will buy more for other customers, or leverage human resources to operate and monitor, ignores the
fact that such cost must add again the provider`s profit, so in general cost saving is canceled. This means, I get a 30%
saving but I also generate a 30% “profit,” so which is the saving amount?
There is not much saving on HW against virtualization. I have recently published a note in my Twitter of HCL (Indian Technology Multinational) CEO, Vineet Nayar in which he literally mentioned that there is nothing new on Cloud Computing that has not been resolved by virtualization. Directly and grotesquely he said that Cloud Computing was “rubbish.” Hardware on demand`s idea is pretty simple of copying due to advent of virtual machines, so benefit on cost saving is much more limited than what people think

Innovation

Within IT history, I do not know a company which had exponentially grown by doing same things as other companies. The addition to cloud services is a way of “standardizing” with other companies. Innovation and Competitiveness is lost. That`s the reason why differentiating processes should be under our domain and not under a service provided by a third-party.

Interoperability

If we already have systems, migrating to the cloud can be difficult. Systems` interaction or satellite developments upon
own platforms are already a problem though any of them is under our domain. If we have to add an external provider in
which getting port access is a priority, and a protocol depends on other, that even more works on another time band and speaks other language, and ask filling 20 files and assist other 20 customers, then we add more problems to our operations. Not a minor issue, if you consider a flexible and agile company regarding market`s changes.

Then, why Cloud Computing is a Latin American`s reality?

Most of our companies are SMBs. Software, hardware, IT human resources` purchase cost, is too high for companies of
such size, so due to cloud computing we have access to e-mails, office packages, human resources or sales apps.
Software and hardware automatically updates, so we will have a development department that probably cannot achieve all expected improvements but will certainly generate evolutions with better features.

Is Cloud Computing viable for big companies?

Of course. All my big customers are questioned by me, How long have you been using Gmail/Yahoo? Generally, they said since many years. How many times have you lost information on those services? (never, is the common answer.) How many times service was down? (Few times, typical answer). So why do you want an e-mail server in your company? it must be monitor, needs space, cpu, patches, having ups, backups, a reliable internet link, etc, etc. All that summarized in a monthly payment per e-mail user.

Additionally, if my sales process is not original but similar to the rest of companies, and works independently from other systems such as human resources, invoicing, then there is no visible problem of migrating to SalesForce.com, same thing happens with payroll, human capital, etc. Provided that they are a standard, not the heart of business and do not interact much with other systems, then they will be used by the cloud.

Future

This section would be nothing without “Future”: from my point of view, in the future Cloud Computing will not be considered – as Marketing`s premises – “best management” or “cost reduction” but it will be partly powered – as we can see in the video games industry – because it reduces and considerably complicates computer software piracy.

 

Virtual Universe (by Maximiliano Downar)

I always remember this anecdote when talking about virtualization. Some years ago, I was in exclusive engineers´ group of an US multinational IT company. We gathered to learn about “virtualization,” by one of the most important business server hardware companies, which in its operating system allowed virtualization.

I considered “virtualization” of a computer fascinating and modern. The emulation that cheats many operating systems and apps called this “science fiction,” so I attended the event to get last news about this subject.
After two hours of presentation, one of the older engineers at  the company, addressed at the speaker using that tone and impunity that those people after years in a company have and asked: “when are you going to say something new? What you are showing as “modern,” it has been in the mainframe world
for almost three decades.” I still remember the wordless  panic-stricken face of the speaker. He belonged to my generation and ignored as I did that the virtualization idea was not new and that it had appeared on the 60s and was
developed on 70s of last century by IBM.
My business career continued, but one of the things I miss from that period is talking with my colleagues about the mainframe world. Among other things, they used to (sometimes exaggeratedly) point me out that new “color
mirrors” of industry were actually recycled mainframe ideas.
The machine virtual generation will not have many drastic changes in the future. Everybody knows it, more processing capacity, high availability, more supported hardware, operating systems, etc, etc.

But I do not want to write about this right now, but about other virtual ideas that are already appearing on this age and that  will have an impact on our lives within future decades.
V i r t u a l    W o r l d

Our senses are sensors. The eye is a machine that sends images to our brain. Also, our ear sends sounds to the brain so that this can filter and process them. The same happens with our skin, that transmits tactile feelings such as “hot”, “cold,” “silky,” “creased,” and finally our tongue that send signals such as “sweet,” “salted,” or “acid.” Everything is analyzed and filtered by the brain.  The famous game Second Life suggested a virtual world
where million of people can connect to live parallel lives.
Although it has its height period, nowadays is almost oldfashioned news. What would happen if that virtual world, which now will have to access through boring PCs, mouse and keyboards, can give access by entering directly our brain?
Impossible? This year, scientists of the Alberta University developed a theory that describes how the brain codify and store our memories in our memory. The cochlear implant sends sounds that capture through a microphone to our brain, and there is already advances on optical nerves to make this. How would it be a future like this? Movie world has showed that future in many movies and TV shows, Matrix saga and The Thirteenth Floor are the most well- known, but the V-World presented on the science fiction show Caprica is for me the closest to reality.

For those that are still imaging all this, from our home we can drive a car with feelings such as acceleration, touching a leather steering wheel, etc, exactly equal to real ones. Our brain will definitely believe them as real.

We can work with somebody at thousand miles away and at same time being with this person in our mind or even have sexual relationships without leaving our desk.
V i r t u a l   Br a i n s

Historically, it has been always advances on what it is known as  “artificial intelligence.” In a few simpler words, some software programmers create“intelligent” software that can resolve some advanced issues as human beings. Following this line, you can  find Watson, IBM computer that will be assigned as consultant for Cancer experts from a Treatment Institute against Cancer in LA.
There are also other known paths:

Firstly, decoding our brain and loading it in some DNA virtual machine or empty brain, where it can be “copied” all information taken from the brain. Since some years ago, there is project “Blue  Brain” from IBM that fakes a brain at molecular level. Something like a reverse engineering of our brain. This will create a virtual brain that can be trained, educated, developed, etc. Artificial life? It can be, but that will depend on which level we will be able to train the virtual brain.

The second path is being considered now by some science fiction writers. The idea would be creating a “virtual brain” (something like a machine that keeps brains) for which we have to create apart from the machine, a mechanism that decodes our personality, memory, intelligence, etc, and that it can be copied. May be the innovation and creativity capacities will come from this advance, thought it can be extremely risky. Authors have warned us many times, but it seems we cannot learn, because the immortality possibility is extremely tempting.

Maximiliano Downar

http://www.globalmedia-it.com