Sky's Blog

JD Lasica has just published a report Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing, based on an Aspen Institute meeting in mid-2008. It is one of three such Aspen Institute reports he has written, and all are available as free ebooks.

First, here’s my own take on cloud computing in the future. I can see that within a very few years (maybe now for some of us), many of us will not know (or care to know) where our data reside. Instead, we’ll be using our home computers as netbooks, connecting to our databases, friend-networks, profiles and documents, and we really won’t care where the data live. Today we see this happening with the rise of Google Docs (documents), gmail (Yahoo and Hotmail too, of course for years), and I see more and more people content to “just Google” to find answers to questions and no longer needing to have all of the books sitting on bookshelves at home. (continue reading…)

I am increasingly concerned about the fragility of the Internet. With our data living more and more in the cloud, we are vulnerable when networks fail. Without email, without the documents I’m writing or editing, I have to sit out any network blackout that takes place. This happens to me more often than I’d like – probably a couple of times a month in my home office. I’m on Comcast cable for my connectivity, and though I frequently get 10 megabits/second of bandwidth, and almost always have at least 1.5 mbs, there are times when it gets so unreliable it might as well not be there, and then there are times when it just stops working for a couple of hours. (continue reading…)

{Geeks off the starboard bow, matey, arrrrrr!}

I’ve mentioned before that I’m bringing up web sites on Slicehost. It’s a cloud computing environment and that means I don’t know and don’t care exactly what or where the server is, and I only buy as much as I need.

It’s an interesting experience because in the rest of my life I’m constantly expanding my (personal) computers by adding storage and processor power so they can run faster and faster, but in the case of cloud computing, instead, I’m scaling down the pieces of software so they can run more efficiently in a small “computer” instead. (continue reading…)

Cloud Computing- it’s a relatively new term for a relatively old concept. For at least six months now I’ve been thinking about two inevitabilities: 1) that my servers will fail some day soon; and 2) that I may have to rapidly scale (up) some customer’s site because it will suddenly have traffic needs well beyond the capacity of my servers.

The answer is pretty obvious to me – I’ll soon be eliminating my own serves in favor of purchasing computing power in whatever quantities I need at the time. Scalable on demand. From one of the cloud service providers that are coming online now.

(continue reading…)