[MLUG] Cloud Computing

[Jared Brick]

I see a definite shift in the way companies are/will do business.

Should companies put their data in other companies hands? Well they already
do! They use Windows/Redhat/Oracle, they outsource half their staff, they
give the email addresses of all their customers to epsilon, etc. Offloading
server maintenance, system reliability, redundancy and performance tuning
seems like a pretty logical step. And I don't think this is simply on-demand
computing, think Google apps for your domain or salesforce.com. There are
plenty of web based, outsourced apps in every vertical.

Most publicly traded companies have to focus on their core competencies, and
keep operational costs low. For smaller companies the barrier of entry is
much lower.

Yes there needs to be sys admin to maintain those servers "in the cloud",
but the ratio is way off. Not 5 to 1, more like 1000 to 1. Yes there needs
to be a "tech guy" in the company to ensure this is in place, but he doesn't
have to be as knowledgeable, and can easily be outsourced. A large service
company like IBM can come in and do what integration and management is left.

Does it cost more? No way I would accept such a premise. How often do you
over spec a server for the once a quarter peak loads? How good is your
uptime? How quickly can you replace parts? How quickly can you move entire
datacenters? Why bother maintaining a mail server? Why bother maintaining a
CRM system? How many people are you paying to do this work that has nothing
to do with your core business?

I'm not saying that SA work is going to disappear, but in 10-15 years I'm
sure demand will be far lower than the supply.

*Full disclosure: I work for a prominent "cloud" company. But I assure you
my opinions are my own!

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 1:40 PM, Patricia Campbell
<triciamontreal at gmail.com>wrote:

> I don't necessarily agree.  It can be cost effective if you need it on a
> regular basis.  With the prices the way they are you pay for what you need
> when you need it depending on the use / security etc it may be the most cost
> effective.  In the case I sited it would be, it would also be more
> flexible.
>
> Unless, like NRC you are using your facilities to capacity, then it is
> worthwhile to create a private cloud.
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 12:23 AM, spam spammer <nospamormorespam at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 7 April 2011 00:10, Nick Sklav <sklav at teksavvy.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Here is a nice read similar to what Patricia was mentioning, This
>>> company got the aprox 10,000 cores running in an amazon cloud for 8
>>> hours at the cost of aprox 9000$. And finished his project in that time
>>> frame so I guess the cloud is more than just a storage server ;)
>>>
>>> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/040611-linux-supercomputer.html
>>>
>>> Quite true, when you need that computing power once in a blue moon. But
>> not if you need it regularly! Which I think was the initial point.
>>
>>
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