Cloud Computing
the wharf rat
Ok, soooooooo...... I don't quite get it. I mean, it's like
deja vu all over again, right? First we all had a 9600 baud serial line
to the mux in the machine room and we could type at the VAX or even get
Wylbur and make the ASA/9 look like a VAX. It all just worked because there
was some guy in the basement taking care of things. But people weren't
completely happy and they started to put little bitty computers on their
desks. The teeny computers got bigger and bigger until no one needed the
VAX anymore and all the Digital guys retired to California to become musicians.
But people *still* weren't happy so we all got Suns with lots of memory and
great processors and color monitors and the best part was they didn't have disc
drives or anything. They were all network clients so they were as fast as
the formerly-teeny (personal) computers but didn't make noise or need
stuff installed it all just worked because there was some guy in the basement
taking care of it. Only it turned out that this wasn't such a great idea
because if the network had problems all the network *clients* had even more
problems and anyway lots of stuff really did run faster with, say,local swap,
so people started hooking SCSCI drives and printers and
even QIC tapes up to these network clients. After a while we just stopped
buying network clients and connecting drives to them and went back to buying
teeny computers to put on people's desks and all the Sun guys retired to
Belize to listen to former Digital employees sing grateful Dead covers.
But people still weren't happy. They wanted to have their cake and
carry it around with them all day, too, so they stopped buying teeny computers
and started buying PDA's and smart phones and even teenier computers which
didn't have disc drives or make noise or even have keyboards but you could
do everything you needed a real computer for. Sort of. Because after a
while people realized they weren't very happy and so they started putting real
computers in their pockets only they were stil heavy because of allthe disc
drives and such so one day someone got an idea:
Let's put all the data and discs and tapes and stuff off in some
basement somewhere and then people will only need a teeny little computer
because it will run off the NETWORK and it won't make noise or need disc
drives and it'll do evenmore than real computers because it will be
VIRTUALIZED in the CLOUD </cue angels singing/>
Ok, so do you see why I'm confused? What's the difference
between "cloud computing" and any other incarnation of "Trust us,
it will all work better without those pesky local resources" ?
Flytrap
"the wharf rat" wrote in message news:imu3ed$rm3$1...@panix2.panix.com...
>What's the difference
>between "cloud computing" and any other incarnation of "Trust us,
>it will all work better without those pesky local resources" ?
Wharfie, you are such a cute little throwback, living in the past with your
rose-colored glasses.
The Cloud is new and improved! It is the wave of the future, Bill Gates'
final prophecy come true.
Soon, we'll all live in sky castles and have computers in our heads, hence
The Cloud.
(I blame all of the above on the Tylenol 3.)
Flytrap