What the Heck Is Cloud Computing?(focus.com)
focus.com
What the Heck Is Cloud Computing?
http://www.focus.com/articles/servers-storage/what-heck-cloud-computing/
8 comments
Google Docs is constantly improving and have built up much of the basic functionality of excel but it will be a little while before it can really match feature for feature.
Agreed, I also don't see much advantage in word processing or spreadsheets on the cloud.
The only thing I can think of is some light-weight collaboration, but more involved collaboration is better done using version control anyway. This is outweighed by the disadvantages of having to deal with clunky Javascript/Flash apps and slow internet connsections.
There are many cool things to be done on the cloud, but Office-style apps just don't seem to be a good example.
The only thing I can think of is some light-weight collaboration, but more involved collaboration is better done using version control anyway. This is outweighed by the disadvantages of having to deal with clunky Javascript/Flash apps and slow internet connsections.
There are many cool things to be done on the cloud, but Office-style apps just don't seem to be a good example.
The cloud is ominous but cloud/asp/saas based services do more for you. For instance Google Docs remembers every revision of a document, has access to that document from everywhere, no need to clutter up email servers and people can edit it at the same time or share it.
Also, let's say you have a massive spreadsheet that would bog down you local machine. When perfected spreadsheets and data will be like 3D rendering in the cloud, long processes can be divided up into small chunks and distributed across many servers to process it. There are 3D rendering network farms like this, you upload a model and it renders very fast in a grid on machines that are not economical to buy except for in a large groups.
It might seem like overkill now but when you are dealing with terabytes of data in the future and very distributed teams the cloud is a natural evolution. It isn't an end all be all but it has huge ability to take processing from one machine and spread it around almost like peer to peer did to downloading a file.
Also, let's say you have a massive spreadsheet that would bog down you local machine. When perfected spreadsheets and data will be like 3D rendering in the cloud, long processes can be divided up into small chunks and distributed across many servers to process it. There are 3D rendering network farms like this, you upload a model and it renders very fast in a grid on machines that are not economical to buy except for in a large groups.
It might seem like overkill now but when you are dealing with terabytes of data in the future and very distributed teams the cloud is a natural evolution. It isn't an end all be all but it has huge ability to take processing from one machine and spread it around almost like peer to peer did to downloading a file.
It's computing with multiple data centers...
You can have a local cloud (a data center that you're in) and an external cloud (an undisclosed number of data centers that are external to you)... but whenever you abstract the number of external data centers, that becomes a cloud.
You can have a local cloud (a data center that you're in) and an external cloud (an undisclosed number of data centers that are external to you)... but whenever you abstract the number of external data centers, that becomes a cloud.
Lets just say it's the union of IaaS, RaaS and SaaS.
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The term "Cloud computing" has been abused quite heavily but here's how I understand it:
Your use of an external service where your use of that service (e.g. storage, processing power etc.) is so small compared to the global use that you are able to scale up and down without affecting anyone and the system as a whole. You also only pay for the amounts of the service that you have used.
Your use of an external service where your use of that service (e.g. storage, processing power etc.) is so small compared to the global use that you are able to scale up and down without affecting anyone and the system as a whole. You also only pay for the amounts of the service that you have used.
I use Excel heavily when I am working with financial data from 10Ks and 10Qs. I've tried other services that are competitors of Excel, but only the Open Office version comes close to having the same functionality, and I usually don't even need the more advanced features of Excel. Will the cloud (correct term?) eventually be able to offer the full functionality of Excel?