April 16, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Lassoing a Cloud
April 17, 2009 at 1:49 am
Personally, yes. A cloud database would be very useful in two or three situations here at my work. However, all those are internal, spread across several national subsidiaries on a private network.
I wouldn't want to use cloud database services at the moment across any publicly visible network. Assuming we could get the security issue sorted out, I still feel both national and international privacy regulation is lagging too far behind the needs of IT to be able to cope with a sea change as big as this. There's just too much potential for abuse until the legal framework can catch up a bit.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
April 17, 2009 at 2:33 am
Call me sceptical, but is this a case of the Emperor's New Cloud?
Call me cynical, but do I hear the distant scurrying of salesmen to their outsourced development departments asking for "cloud" installers?
Call me paranoid, but was it identity thieves themselves that thought this thing up?
Personally, I think cloud computing is the best idea since sub-prime mortgages ....:crazy:
April 17, 2009 at 2:37 am
I think it is better to put your head under the sand than to have it up in the clouds...
April 17, 2009 at 5:32 am
You know, I'm thinking to myself - "Self, big business like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, et. al. offer a service of some kind in the Cloud. They very much want us to use the Cloud. But do you think they run any LOB apps in the Cloud? You know, like accounting, sales, CRM, and payroll. Do you think they run a data warehouse in the Cloud? Do you think they keep any of their intellectual property in the Cloud? You know, like would Microsoft have a global version of TFS will ALL of their source sitting out there in the Cloud? Do you think Steve Ballmer keeps a copy of Microsoft's business strategy on Skydrive??" Self is doubtful. At least not in the public Cloud - which is where 99% of us will be stuck in the real world. Like anyone without a billion bucks will have their own Cloud.
I will happliy use Google Maps and Skydrive and Facebook and all the other inane Cloud applications. But I'm thinking until the 800lb industry gorillas start eating (and gagging) on their own Cloud "dog food", I will be perfectly content to keep all the really important stuff in my protected silo, far away from the Cloud.
James Stover, McDBA
April 17, 2009 at 6:11 am
At this point I am not interested in any cloud databases and years of experience has taught me when a collective of techies are all excited about something that has not been fully explored with a neutral viewpoint, run as fast as you can away from it.
In the last week, reading the various blogs and posts about cloud databases/cloud computing quickly reveals that these posts are all coming from the "high on the idea" techie side. There are brief mentions of "oh, well, we will have to deal with some security issues..." but no one seems to be diving deep into the weaknesses, pitfalls, or negatives of this concept. And as we know, anything looks good if you ignore the negatives...
There have been plenty of bad ideas in computing that looked wonderful at the outset - the problem being in this industry is that these ideas get launched and only then do the downsides get discovered. The cloud idea sounds great on the surface, but that is the problem - no one is talking about what is beyond the surface.
Until there is more extensive research into that, I am not giving any serious thought to it.
April 17, 2009 at 6:25 am
I would be interested in using the external cloud for some of my personal stuff, but not for a business application at this time. Between security issues and potential bandwidth issues, I'm not sure I'd get what I want out if it.
I am interested in an internal cloud as is mentioned in Thursday's editorial, Dreaming of Clouds[/url]. Although I wonder how upgrades, etc... would work on this type of system.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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April 17, 2009 at 6:28 am
majorbloodnock (4/17/2009)
I wouldn't want to use cloud database services at the moment across any publicly visible network.
I think that about sums it up for now. Internal clouds, sure. Public clouds are a different story. The cloud as Microsoft is picturing it has amazing potential. It seems like a person savy in both cloud concepts and business principles could create an incredible business with minimal up front costs and easy scalability as the business grows.
On the other hand, there's that nagging problem of hackers. I once had a hamster. I came home one day and found the hamster systematically gnawing on every bar in its little cage. It looked cute but silly. I few days later, the hamster escaped. I still don't know how. When your lifetime, all-consuming job is to escape a cage, even a hamster can figure out how to do it. There are people out there who seem to feel that their life calling is to hack networks whether for profit or just mischeif. It will take just one situation where someone builds a really big business in the cloud and the business gets destroyed by a hacker to add a dose of harsh reality to this concept very quickly.
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
April 17, 2009 at 7:02 am
I'm sure it will get dog fooded at some point. Microsoft does a good job pushing their apps internally to staff to test early. If they get a cloud version of SQL Server, I would bet they'll be running internal clouds.
April 17, 2009 at 7:03 am
I am more interested in the Internal Cloud that was mentioned in one of the previous articles.
After reading through this weeks articles, one concern that I did not hear surface was licensing, bandwidth and connectivity issues when it comes to pulling the data back in to use with third party software. This is currently a problem even when using linked servers.
April 17, 2009 at 7:39 am
Cloud, internal network ...
Cloud, scalability ...
Cloud, application independence ...
Cloud, thin client ...
Cloud, external network ...
hmmm ...
It sounds like the same 'terminology re-inventions' plague that have been wrought upon us by marketing consultants, business consultants and MBAs for nigh, over 20 years now.
Sound familiar - if it does not let me awaken memories for some ...
Problems --> 'issues'
How long will it take --> What is your ETC
Software 'bugs' --> 'defects'
Application Software --> 'fat' client
Web Software --> 'thin' client
Programmer resigned --> we have 'resource' 'issues' (hah! a double whammy!)
hmmm ...
Now that we have gotten used to being over 'politically corrected' ...
(does anyone still call a 'spade' a 'spade' ?)
It is once time yet again to be overly corrected by the 'techno-marketeers'.
(new ways to try to earn our money yet again and lots of smoke blown into the same old orifice !)
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
April 17, 2009 at 7:41 am
Whether one likes the idea of cloud computing or not, it is coming and we need to be prepared. It will not be a DBA's decision to use a cloud-based database it will come from an executive who went to a high-level conference discussing the potential benefits.
We risk becoming obsolete in the marketplace if we ignore or dismiss cloud computing. Steve, I appreciate your editorials this week and it had prompted me to begin learning as much as I can about "The Cloud".
That and my boss told us that the previously-mentioned executive wants us to look at it seriously. Thanks again for the timely writings.
April 17, 2009 at 7:49 am
Currently, I don't see a need for it with what I'm doing.
On the other hand, I'm almost always interested in trying these kinds of things out. Given the chance at a free version, sort of Cloudy SQL Express, I'd at least give it a shot.
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April 17, 2009 at 7:52 am
Currently no. But a big yes in the future as the technology advances. In my opinion, it will be the way of the future for DataBases.
We will start with a local cloud and progress outwards.
Joe
April 17, 2009 at 8:08 am
I definitely like the prospect of cloud computing. The way I see it now it's an extension of the virtualization initiative that's taken over servers. In the beginning I didn't know much about virtualization and didn't really have a strong opinion about it. When I was talking to our sys admin a few months ago he was raving about it: ability to take an individual server offline for repair while keeping the virtual server online, better usage of hard drive space since most users don't use their full 100 MB allotment, better usage of CPU since some servers were hardly ever used, ability to quickly setup a new virtual server by cloning an existing one. They've apparently gotten rid of a good many physical servers and made them all virtual ones on a handful of new beefy ones. He definitely convinced me that virtualization had a lot of merits going for it.
So with cloud computing I just see SQL Server being a virtual service. Maybe it's got more challenges to deal with to be exposed publicly, but for a private intranet it seems doable. Granted, a private SQL Server cloud isn't all that different from what we can do now anyway. I imagine not every business scenario requires the same performance and security requirements of others, so in many cases a publicly available SQL Server database would be more than adequate. Maybe cloud computing would never work for some businesses, doesn't mean it can't benefit others. Maybe there are benefits and new ways of working that aren't so apparent now but would be if we were using it. Who knows. I'd like to see it in action at least before shooting it down.
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