

Why Cloud is Like Email in the 1980's - pwg
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3933111/Why+Cloud+is+Like+Email+in+the+1980s.htm

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j_baker
I don't get the analogy. Why do clouds need to be interconnected in some way
they aren't now?

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rmason
You could build an infrastructure across multiple clouds. When AWS went down
your software would automatically fire up more instances on GAE or Rackspace
Cloud to replace it. A complex layer of software that knitted everything
together would result in a large increase in reliability.

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miGlanz
How is that not possible today?

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wwrap
It could be 'serverside' rather than 'clientside'.

As in, sure you can connect the AIM and MSN chat networks, but you yourself
have to run a server to connect the two.

Currently one also has to have migration functionality written by themselves.
Instead, amazon could provide it, just like AIM could provide an MSN gateway
themselves.

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MichaelGG
I'm not so sure. Even instant messaging has not done much interop. Users on
AOL and MSN cannot IM each other. This is a very popular, end-user scenario
with network effects. Wouldn't that be the "same pressures" as email?

Why would "clouds", which are mostly a concern of IT and software
implementation folk, get pressure to interop like email?

He's obviously smarter and has better perspective than me, so what does he
mean? Perhaps API compatibility because everyone will adopt AWS and OpenStack
APIs?

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mtogo
This article used everything required to get a frontpage HN submission:

    
    
        1. The word cloud

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sdkmvx
So what is the cloud protocol? I'm not sure this guy even understands what a
cloud is. Email messages all look the same (headers, then message) and they
were mostly transferred on SMTP. How would anyone possibly interconnect AWS
and Rackspace? Dropbox and Let's Crate? etc.

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sunir
There was a time before SMTP. Vint Cerf was there.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf>

The historical analogy is sound and worth considering.

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sdkmvx
> There was a time before SMTP.

That is why I mentioned common format (headers + message) and 'mostly' SMTP.

But for early email, allowing users to email someone at a different computer
wasn't an issue of profit.

'Cloud' companies don't want you to use another company's products. Google
doesn't want your docs stored on Dropbox. That issue didn't exist with email,
and if you look at something like Facebook messages, you can't send a message
from a Facebook account to a Myspace (or whatever else) account.

That, more than anything else, is going to inhibit 'cloud' growth.

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rick888
it's more like '.net'.

Remember when this was the latest buzz words and nobody really knew what it
meant?

