
Google: What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing - peter123
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about.html
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CalmQuiet
The punch line of the post: "ask a simple question: can I find the same
economics, ease of maintenance, and pace of innovation that is inherent in the
cloud?"

I wonder why he declined to add "... and security" ? ;)

~~~
oconnor0
That's a great question that had never crossed my mind.

How do you manage security in cloud? Can you even do it? Because someone else
is administrating your servers, they can get access to everything you have. Is
there a way around that? Or is there a way to write your applications to be
secure even in that environment?

~~~
wmf
In theory trusted computing can solve that problem but it's not clear that it
will ever become practical. I think customers are just going to have to trust
the cloud providers.

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lsc
where I stand, the best price per gigabyte of ram is obtained on dual-socket
(8 core) opterons with 32GB ram (16x2gb modules). Right now, ram is my big
bottleneck.

most single-socket systems only let you install 8GB ram (4x2gb modules) so
I've got to buy twice as many single socket boards to get the same amount of
ram. It's ok, I guess if you need more cpu than ram.

The other problem is that you usually have to go to a server-class board to
get low-power CPUs. I know of no desktop CPU that can compete with the Xeon L
series or the Opteron HE series. (Sure, there are low-power desktop CPUs, but
none of them have the performance of the Xeon L or opteron HE. If you know of
a quad-core desktop CPU that eats less than 75w I'd be happy to hear about
it.)

I'm sure google pays less per watt than I do, but still, if you plan on
keeping hardware around for two years, the ongoing cost per watt makes a big
difference. Low power CPUs save serious money, even if they cost more up
front.

Opteron HE bartons are ridiculously cheap right now. 1.8Ghz quad-core HE
processors are around $100 on newegg right now. (2.1Ghz quad-core shanghi
opteron HE cpus that you might actually want to use are closer to $300. Still
cheap.)

Also, while I agree that you should prepare for any bit of hardware dying at
any time, I think technologies like ECC in ram are important so that you
notice when your hardware dies. I don't mind a box that is dead. I replace it.
It happens. What bothers me is a box that is kindof acting funny. You know,
when you can't tell if it is the software or hardware. Sure, you can do some
of that at the application level with checksums, but it's difficult to do it
at the OS level.

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ibsulon
A third of the price for gmail versus other mail providers. That's great,
until you can't get to google tech support and you can't get to your email and
nobody knows quite why. Sorry, in most organizations, I'll handle my mail
myself. gmail's great for personal accounts, but I'm not ready to trust a
business to it.

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rgrieselhuber
I also wonder how many business are ready to have all of their email
communications indexed by Google. Granted, with any third party provider, it's
going to happen, but I would at least prefer to keep my eggs in more than one
basket.

