April 11, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Cloud of Destiny
April 12, 2009 at 11:54 am
Thanks Steve for writing this, I have investigated the Clouds there is very limited software engineering in there however there is large hardware server software consolidation. There is also PHP CMS page generating engine similar to http handler on the Microsoft platform, it is being hyped as cloud software Microsoft knows there limited development in it. The problem is there is big money funding it so it is wait for more details because when people start loosing data in the cloud things will change. The Indiana Cloud camp was canceled because it was hosted by web hosting company looking to hire sales people nothing more. There are some easy to use media viewer engine running on PHP Drupal and some easy to use Drupal and Joomla CMS. I actually think it is developers that will be replaced not DBA because if a company runs more than 100gig Cloud will be an expensive place to store your data. So if you are a multi billion dollar company the cloud may save you money and it will help very new company but most in the middle will use Cloud only as needed. The article below says developers code that most of the time needs to the cleaned up will run in the Cloud as is and the DBA is storage keeper so will be replaced but I think that is just crazy reasoning. The second link is Microsoft platform Cloud company. How do you run a BI operation in the Cloud without automation and code for Reporting?
http://visualstudiomagazine.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2576
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
April 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
If you take the example quoted by Amazon, a medium sized website db of 100GB and averaging 100 I/Os a second over the course of the month, it would cost $26 a month to host it in the cloud. There are SQL Server AMIs already available - I haven't had a chance to use them yet - been working mostly with Oracle AMIs so far.
I think it's a great concept. It's going back to the old timesharing days when you'd log on to an IBM mainframe and pay for what you used.
April 13, 2009 at 10:08 am
Thanks for the comments.
The thing to keep in mind is that this isn't for every company, or every app, but it has a place in the future. If you look around at all your servers, don't pick the ones that you think aren't good candidates. Try to pick a few that might be, and think about the possibilities, advantages, disadvantages, etc.
April 13, 2009 at 10:17 am
chrise (4/13/2009)
If you take the example quoted by Amazon, a medium sized website db of 100GB and averaging 100 I/Os a second over the course of the month, it would cost $26 a month to host it in the cloud. There are SQL Server AMIs already available - I haven't had a chance to use them yet - been working mostly with Oracle AMIs so far.I think it's a great concept. It's going back to the old timesharing days when you'd log on to an IBM mainframe and pay for what you used.
I don't know about Oracle but most hosting companies currently charge about that for SQL Server now and much less for MySQL but you still need to Backup, maintain performance and other tasks so how will the developer take care of all that without a DBA? In most web application that data is the company asset lets hope the Cloud is providing more than storage because what exists now is more than storage.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
April 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Right you still need a DBA but backup/restore and other managed services are probably going to appear pretty quickly from Amazon, Cap Gemini, IBM or other partners, just as they did when colos were all the rage.
April 13, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Yes those services let me tell you about how these could cost small businesses that decides to take the advice in the article I posted, during one of the migrations of the old Microsoft MSDN forums thousands of gig data was migrated but there was no change checking code so we the users could not find our threads. I was the person who showed yes the data was migrated but it did not make it to our profile and it took a long time to convince the developer something really bad happened. If this is a small company without a data expert nobody knows how long before such error could be verified and the cost. I want to see actual engineering or buyer be aware because it will take a DBA similar time to verify and the code may not even be deployed with DBA on staff.
And no I am still dissatisfied with the results of the correction of the above error.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
April 13, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Data in the cloud? Are you *NUTS*???
Security is (almost) non-existant. Hosting companies are big fat cows just waiting for hackers to milk them. One lucky break and a dozen company's data could be stolen. And then the lawsuits begin to fly...
The cloud is way too immature yet. The infrastructure is too fragile, too complex, and just plain not ready.
Talk about the nightmare scenario...Brrr!
April 13, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Security is (almost) non-existant. Hosting companies are big fat cows just waiting for hackers to milk them. One lucky break and a dozen company's data could be stolen. And then the lawsuits begin to fly...
Another industry to make the lawyers and insurance companies money and leave us less than we started.
:Whistling:
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
April 13, 2009 at 1:30 pm
roger.plowman (4/13/2009)
Data in the cloud? Are you *NUTS*???
Salesforce.com (and similar entities)
Lots of online payroll companies.
It can, and is working. For every system no, but it does make sense in places.
April 13, 2009 at 6:30 pm
chrise (4/13/2009)
I think it's a great concept. It's going back to the old timesharing days when you'd log on to an IBM mainframe and pay for what you used.
I also think of the cloud as similar to a big 'ol mainframe in the sky. Whether it's a mainframe or lots of smaller servers (each of which may have qualified as "mainframes" years ago)... the users and people who write the checks could care less about where all the data, apps, security, etc. are stored and implemented. They just want it to "work". And "work" means different things to different people, some of whom have a more focused (i.e. smaller) perspective, and some of whom have a much bigger picture in mind. But the question "Will it save us money?" is a biggie in this equation.
So my forecast is that it is going to get cloudier and cloudier out there... for SQL Server and everything else... and I don't mean that in a bad way.
April 13, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Hi
My gravest concern with the cloud is the 'sovereignty' of the data.
I work for central government in New Zealand. On paper NZ`s small scale is a good candidate for the cloud. But, who controls the data? What if the Singapore (say) datacentre is closed down by the authorities local to the datacentre and access to my data is denied? At the moment, to me, that is an unacceptable risk.
Between ORM and the cloud the DBA`s job is changing..
Cheers
James
April 14, 2009 at 9:48 am
I think Steve has hit it on the head. It is not going to be for all apps or all forms of business. The risk, just like the risk assocatied with a full recovery or a simple recovery, has to be thought about discussed and the cost has to be evaulated. DBA's will be needed and used, if not at the smaller company's on the cloud then at the host for the cloud. At the larger companies on the cloud there will probably still be dba's/architects available to help understand, use and protect the data. And there will be companies that will not move to the cloud, because it makes more sense not to. Just as there are applications that will leverage SAN's, Virtual servers in house well there will be those that are better off on standalone servers and disk's.
Nothing really scarry here, if we have our eye's open and are open to our managment about the risk's involved.
Mark 🙂
April 14, 2009 at 9:52 am
I am ready for quantum computing on the cloud. Everytime I think about it my mind goes into time warp and I see multiple answers all at one time. Then I pick one and everything else collapses and disappears.:hehe:
April 14, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Steve Jones - Editor (4/13/2009)
roger.plowman (4/13/2009)
Data in the cloud? Are you *NUTS*???Salesforce.com (and similar entities)
Lots of online payroll companies.
It can, and is working. For every system no, but it does make sense in places.
There is quite a bit of misunderstanding about "cloud" computing. I feel compelled to dispel a few myths and add some of my own thoughts here:
1. Cloud computing will never be cheaper than local hosting. The pay scale must of necessity pay for the equipment it runs on. Far too many have been duped into thinking otherwise. Payroll, lead management, and all other segments fall into this. The only types of tasks/needs saved by centralization are those that are highly regulated, and serve less brain damage to let someone else handle it. Note: I say again - this does not make it cheaper.
2. There is an assumption that one can put their particular need in the hands of an expert who deals with many of the same types of needs for many others, and all gain orders of magnitude of savings. This is patently misguided. No entity is more responsible for the need or service than the organization that owns it and must remain stable with it. Outsource and cloud companies do as little as possible for price, and levels of complexity are added to administer outsourced projects. Personnel counts do not diminish; they are only somewhat transferred and cost more.
3. MS SQL Server is currently nowhere near cloud capable for any enterprise situation. At this time it is really only positioned for web-facing lookup DBMS, order capture systems, and other thin-client needs. Cloud MS SQL is not even close to being able to house Marketing Databases, analytics, major BI processing, and etcetera. There is no way that in two years that business as a whole will lean on the cloud first. New, un-learned businesses maybe... but they will pay a painful price.
4. Using examples such as Salesforce.com and Payroll processing, without examples to prove validity and cost savings, shows only that many are excited about the ideas, but do not really pay attention to TCO. Having experience with both, I can quantifiably testify against and refute any that claim that they are either better and/or cheaper alternatives. In some cases it is merely less brain damage to a company to not have to "get up and running", but cost far more long term as roadblocks and customization take toll on the TCO bottom line. Do they work? Yes. Can they be made to work for your specific enterprise? Yes - for a price. I have seen companies pay 3 times as much as what it would have cost them to host and man locally their own process or need, but due to tailored marketing to execs that are lacking in IT knowledge, and to all the hype in-tow, bought in.
5. The internet is not nearly fast enough for most enterprise back-office needs.
Other points to ponder:
- Most here would agree that a poor foundational design can ultimately cost 10 times (and more) what building it right the first time would have cost, if it doesn't kill the business. Why then would one just hand that much potential future over to some wispy vaporware system? If a business does not like it after 1, 2, or 3 years, it bites to be you because it is not that easy to extract a business from such an extension.
- I believe that most on this forum would also agree that a process or system designed specifically for a need is far more stable, speedier, and maintainable, than a solution that tries to be all things to all needs. The IT industry as a whole keeps ping-ponging between the poles of centralized processing, and distributed processing. Terminal services threatened to change the desktop into thin ware, much as the old dead-terminal-on-mainframe days. The problem is, mainframes and widely centralized processing equipment cannot be maintained at the same rate as distributed processing can, and the cost is prohibitive. So the pendulum keeps swinging, and we keep learning the lessons over and over.
- A company must be responsible and accountable for its own data and processes. Too many execs hand it over expecting things to "just work as advertised", and then blame "unforeseen" issues on project failures. The problem is, whose responsibility was it to foresee in the first place? How does this happen? Execs usually trust the sales pitch in an outsource offer, but the legal jargon in the actual agreement keeps them from reclaiming damages, and also, from leaving early (short of bankruptcy).
RDBMS as a whole are still deeply in the realm of local management, and likely will still be so in 5 to 10 years... and it still won't be cheaper.
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