I agree - data that resides exclusively "in the cloud" makes me nervous. Very nervous. I prefer a DropBox approach - data that's automatically replicated on all my local devices and the cloud.
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Apple's North Carolina Data Center to Focus on Cloud Computing?
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I agree - data that resides exclusively "in the cloud" makes me nervous. Very nervous. I prefer a DropBox approach - data that's automatically replicated on all my local devices and the cloud.
You're assuming that Apple will make major updates free, which they don't. You're also assuming that the data that you create stays on your system, which it normally doesn't. Look at Google Docs, the documents stay on their servers.
And even if you get to download your file to your HDD, Apple would still have a copy on their servers.
And what happens if I don't have an internet connection. How am I supposed to load the application to create the file?
And why wouldn't you bring your MacBook with you whilst traveling Europe?
And what if you didn't have an internet connection? Then how do you get to your file?
Lastly, I'd bet you that HDD failures aren't as common, as internet connectivity issues. At least for me they aren't.
Don
Shouldn't we just wait until we actually see this mythical iTablet before we start comparing it to netbooks, griping about the price, and debating its relative worth/worthlessness?
Obvious indeed, but otherwise Skynet will need a home as well as the lawnmower man and maybe just maybe if they work real hard to figure out how to get me in there I can live in the cloud after I die... or not
The part in the post being responded to where it is suggested that Apple give away mobileMe service for free. Give away free service to millions of people and spend $1 Billion on hardware to support tends not to work out financially.
If you are suggesting that Apple become one of Google's largest AdWords client and paste ads into eveyones mobile me page. Does that really sound like something Jobs is going to approve?????? Wonky Google ads on Apple's carefully manicured web pages.
Without making mobileMe a billboard kind of tough to make the Billion dollars back without resorting to just blatantly selling off folks information.
Google , Yahoo, Microsoft are doing it buy using the "huge datacenters and 'billions' in hardware" to blast ads to people. Apple isn't in the advertising business.
This is likely far more mundane that folks want to admit.
i. Apple has more global customer base. One data center on West Coast and one on East Coast allows them to split the global inquires in half. One side does one hemisphere and the other does the other. Should make folks not in the US happier with response times.
ii. They have a growing push traffic load. Again splitting the work in half makes it scale better.
iii. non-touch screen iPod users shift over to iPhone OS users as the touch drops down to "nano" levels. ( Apple isn't spending all $1 Billion next year. ) 3-4 years from now would be running bigger store and more stuff even if growth slows down a bit.
iv. There is data mining Apple could do just on what folks buy from them once they have even more millions of folks doing that. Find what people want, offer discounts, they buy more , they make more. The majority of that data mining traffic doesn't have to hit the internet... could all happen inside their data center about data that is already there and the "answers" doesn't get shipped out in mass either.
v. App inspections. If developers are going to submit 1000s of apps to Apple each year for approval, some of that will get automated.
vi. back-ups. time capsule in the cloud for a fee.
vii. experimental grid. ( Apple tries out new grid configurations and does testing. So end up have a large scale test system where don't have to leave the building. ) Perhaps when Apple isn't banging on the test grid full strength they firewall it off from the rest of the data center and "rent" it out as virtual machines for other folks who need a test grid.
On likely contributing reason why Apple's roll outs typically suck is that they didn't do reasonable scale testing beforehand. They may in part be due to fact have no room to build a decent dev/test system.
Apple doesn't have to pack all 500,000 sq ft with production systems. If can afford it nice to have space around for unexpected projects that pop up.
(if just leave the section empy of expensive chillers , racks, etc. then can put a internal badminton/basketball court there for fun breaks. Partially joking... the point is don't have to pack the whole building to the gills with gadgets.
Leaving room allow you to do upgrades ... move to new racking/cooling system that is better 3 years from now without having to take stuff outside. )
A similar factor that Microsoft (and others ) are trying is using containers as grid nodes. You ship in a container that has several racks and chilling inside. Plug it in. When need more horsepower get another container and plug it in. When want to swap out old "tech" for much better "tech" unplug container and bring in new one. Moving containers around means you need a big aisles. ( that ends up being "dead" space, from a packing gear to the rafters perspective). This can make the area under the roof bigger, but not really increase the space taken up with computers in the racks.
If Apple is going with the modular container tech then comparing with data center sq footage of 3-4 years ago ... comparing apples and oranges.
I suppose you also have a generator in the back room and solar panels on the roof for when power goes out. And a ham radio with a big antenna for when all the international phone lines go down. And a small field where you can grow your own food when the grocery stores truck drivers go on strike, or all run out of gas. etc. etc.
As much as I love MobileMe to track my iPhone, Until internet connections becomes miles faster I just dont see Cloud computing taking off at all. To be honest I'd prefer if we just had large SSD drives in the future rather than this.
Having applications all cloud based could cause issues it could be catastrophically slow & causing slow downs for consumers
I mean my internet connection is 8.2Mb/s & thats extremely fast where I live most people round here struggle to get 2 or 3 and Believe it or not I'm with AOL.
Having applications all cloud based could cause issues it could be catastrophically slow & causing slow downs for consumers
I mean my internet connection is 8.2Mb/s & thats extremely fast where I live most people round here struggle to get 2 or 3 and Believe it or not I'm with AOL.
Sort of makes Gates'
bid to control hurricanes seem downright uninspired, doesn't it
Wow!!!!!
Apple has harnessed a way to make the clouds compute for us!!!!
I knew they were working on something revolutionary!!!!
it's from the Heavens! I knew Steve was divine!
bid to control hurricanes seem downright uninspired, doesn't it
Cloud computing can mean different things to different people. To some extent folks have cloud computing backwards here. At least from the perspective of where is it being employed for the last several years (or decades, depending upon the usage).
It doesn't make sense to split your computation from your data if the data is large. In that case better to move the computation to the data. Lots of folks are using cloud computing to crunch through large data sets. Here you rent some disk space and some compute time , crunch the data and just drag the "answers" back to your local location. This makes much more sense when the answers (e.g., "search web for mobile me" ) is much smaller than the data set ( "all the words on all the web pages collected data from ").
The other is the classic timesharing computer set up. Need to use some app that has highly variable load factor (once a month crunch lots of numbers, rest of month login in couple times a day). Cloud vendor charges per hour consumed. this is less than have a computer that is capable for "max power" loads available all month long on-site.
Almost all network based computing presumes that the network is not flaky. In the future, that will be more true. A large center like this wouldn't be being built for what is true no, but for what will be more true 2-3 years from now.
The building isn't even going to exist for almost a year. There isn't going to be substantive computing power up and running inside it for at least a year.
Despite the (clueless) "You don't get that in rural North Carolina" quote in the article, it's not a problem. The Greensboro, NC area offers direct ties to the Tier 1 Internet backbone.
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Since when is 45Mb/s fast?
lol ... this is what i get where i'm sitting right now (bottom).
edit: for chuckles, I added one testing from Stockholm to a server in Paris (top).
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As mentioned in my previous post, i firmly believe that the ddata center was created mostly to support the huge increase in mobileme accounts that will result of apple offering this service FOR FREE to every mac, iphone and tablet user, right out of the box.
Forgot to mention that of course it will also make sense, to add a premium service with more features (probabily increased cloud space) and wich will support part of the cost of the free service. Obviously Target362 has the same idea:
This would not only hugely increasse the appeal of buying apple hardware, but would make wonders regarding client fidelity. Once used to this free service, no on would want to go back to another platform, and i'm not talking abouty crapy windows, but future and better mobile/computer platforms like the nice Palm Pre webOS and such...
Forgot to mention that of course it will also make sense, to add a premium service with more features (probabily increased cloud space) and wich will support part of the cost of the free service. Obviously Target362 has the same idea:
This would not only hugely increasse the appeal of buying apple hardware, but would make wonders regarding client fidelity. Once used to this free service, no on would want to go back to another platform, and i'm not talking abouty crapy windows, but future and better mobile/computer platforms like the nice Palm Pre webOS and such...
The scenario Dmac77 described is a realistic one. Just remember the horrible first weeks of MobileMe ... "Congratulations" if you depended on your emails then.
I had originally thought that cloud computing meant that is syncs your own devices (your iPhone, your computer, your other computer, your tablet, your...). I didn't know that you had to give Steve a copy of your data too!
Really???
Online storage = big brother / socialism of computing.
I would prefer to store my own files on my own external hard drive, thank you very much!
Decentralization of power/storage/etc is a good thing. Humans learned that centuries ago. This way, if Apple's cloud is destroyed (hypothetical) by a tornado, terrorist, earth quake, hackers, or whatever, I will still have my data safe on my computer in my own house. Power surge? No problem, I unplug my external hard drive from my computer when I'm not actively backing up my computer.
I'm not trying to be over paranoid, but I see a lot of drawbacks to the whole new "online storage" concept that corporations are pushing so that they can charge consumers to store their data (data that we currently store ourselves for free after we purchase an external hard drive).
Wait until AT&T gets a hold of this....
.
Really???
Online storage = big brother / socialism of computing.
I would prefer to store my own files on my own external hard drive, thank you very much!
Decentralization of power/storage/etc is a good thing. Humans learned that centuries ago. This way, if Apple's cloud is destroyed (hypothetical) by a tornado, terrorist, earth quake, hackers, or whatever, I will still have my data safe on my computer in my own house. Power surge? No problem, I unplug my external hard drive from my computer when I'm not actively backing up my computer.
I'm not trying to be over paranoid, but I see a lot of drawbacks to the whole new "online storage" concept that corporations are pushing so that they can charge consumers to store their data (data that we currently store ourselves for free after we purchase an external hard drive).
Wait until AT&T gets a hold of this....
.
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FYI: The Greensboro RPOP (Regional Point of Presence) sits on the core oc48 (2.5Gbps) SRP ring interconnecting the central portion of North Carolina. I'm rather certain Apple can afford a pipe >DS3, but for the most businesses needing a data connection in Greenboro the DS3 would likely suffice, which is the likely reason for the DS3 label on the graphic.
Apple as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator "MVNO"
Could the data center be the foundations of Apple bringing the data network inhouse for the iTablet.
Think of it as a larger buffer, rather than your primary storage system.. due to the larger amounts of data from keeping your libraries in sync(data/iTunes/iPhotos) between your main computer and mobile devices?
Could the data center be the foundations of Apple bringing the data network inhouse for the iTablet.
Think of it as a larger buffer, rather than your primary storage system.. due to the larger amounts of data from keeping your libraries in sync(data/iTunes/iPhotos) between your main computer and mobile devices?
I know, I'm joking. I'm sitting on a STM-16x myself, and I'm surprised that they capped my end at 100Mb/s.
Actually, they are in process of upgrading to 40Gb/s, as we speak.
Unfortunately, you're probably right about the long wait. What I wouldn't give to have the inside scoop on Apple's future plans!
Don't Panic
On the cloud front, I foresee apple continuing along similar lines as they are now with their idisk syncing service. You will still be able to keep information and applications stored locally (apple realize the benefits of ownership as can be seen by their itunes model - they know that 'owning' the files is important to people) but there will be expanded syncing capabilities. I currently have 60GB idisk space and it is fantastic knowing that all of my work and development files are on my computer, backed up with time machine AND backed up and available at any time from any other computer I should decide to use with the idisk. Hard drive sizes will no doubt always outpace cloud space available at affordable prices and will likely be the norm well into the future unless something unforeseeable increase spike in bandwidth is just around the corner. Should you decide to keep files online only then I'm sure you will be able to as is the case currently, though I wouldn't and I'm doubtful they would ever remove your choice in the matter. I'd say this new building will extend mobile me syncing services as it will no doubt have to (even 60GB is not big enough), and as one poster mentioned, free online storage (limited) when buying a mac is not entirely out of the question either...
On the cloud front, I foresee apple continuing along similar lines as they are now with their idisk syncing service. You will still be able to keep information and applications stored locally (apple realize the benefits of ownership as can be seen by their itunes model - they know that 'owning' the files is important to people) but there will be expanded syncing capabilities. I currently have 60GB idisk space and it is fantastic knowing that all of my work and development files are on my computer, backed up with time machine AND backed up and available at any time from any other computer I should decide to use with the idisk. Hard drive sizes will no doubt always outpace cloud space available at affordable prices and will likely be the norm well into the future unless something unforeseeable increase spike in bandwidth is just around the corner. Should you decide to keep files online only then I'm sure you will be able to as is the case currently, though I wouldn't and I'm doubtful they would ever remove your choice in the matter. I'd say this new building will extend mobile me syncing services as it will no doubt have to (even 60GB is not big enough), and as one poster mentioned, free online storage (limited) when buying a mac is not entirely out of the question either...
"Location" is everything in the US. Capacity exceeds current demand in all of the major points on the US backbone, while in other areas far from the backbone no business could afford to pay the price for a decent sized pipe. But it's a big country so most of the backbone providers tend to cluster in the most favorable geographic locations rather than the largest population centers of the country. The highest-capacity areas in the US are near the center of the county, i.e. Salt Lake City and Kansas City, followed by Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, and Las Vegas, all located a bit away from center. North Carolina's Net capacity is actually quite good however, with three major links to the backbone at Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh-Durham.
Thanks but no thanks to 'cloudy computing' in general--I'd rather not have to use a dumb terminal (and therefore lose the ability to access my own data if a network connection issue occurs). I also don't want all of my data to reside on a server out there where I have no ownership of it and no ability to ensure any sort of privacy. For example, I have never, nor will I ever use any of google's 'cloud' services.
I think the integration you're talking about is possible, but "free"? No way. As it is, Mobile Me users are paying too much for minimal services.
lighten up
OK, so Apple's ready to drop SL in a month or so, right? What's the main point of the OS release? Everyone is moving to multi-core machines so we're building Grand Central so software developers can help you get more performance from your machines. GPUs are getting exponentially faster and the amount of RAM they have makes them blazingly fast. So, what are we at Apple going to do? We're going to build in OpenCL support so you can get more performance from your existing hardware.
My point is that many of your statements are at odds with what's actually going on. Why would Apple be setting the direction of it's OS and enabling developers (for years to come) to make the most out of increasingly fast hardware (and cheap storage) while at the same time pushing a cloud computing agenda?
OK, so Apple's ready to drop SL in a month or so, right? What's the main point of the OS release? Everyone is moving to multi-core machines so we're building Grand Central so software developers can help you get more performance from your machines. GPUs are getting exponentially faster and the amount of RAM they have makes them blazingly fast. So, what are we at Apple going to do? We're going to build in OpenCL support so you can get more performance from your existing hardware.
My point is that many of your statements are at odds with what's actually going on. Why would Apple be setting the direction of it's OS and enabling developers (for years to come) to make the most out of increasingly fast hardware (and cheap storage) while at the same time pushing a cloud computing agenda?
I know it's currently expensive =(, I'm a paying mobileme user...Anyway the fact that they charge a lot doesn't mean they make a lot of money. I believe that, maybe for that reason, the client base is too small.
If they offer at least the basic services for free, then the client base will be huge and they'll make a lot of money out of hardware sales, like itunes (software, revenue close to zero) vs ipod (hardware, huge revenue). They may also make some money out of the premium mobileme services, but that would allways be marginal...
And won't the Western intelligence agencies just love this! No more running around trying to monitor emails/forums/jihadist websites etc. There'll be an office in the corner of Steve's Big Building where the CIA/DIA/FBI/Homeland/MI5/MI6 are no more than 20 paces from all the intelligence they could ever need. And just think of the cost savings...
Hopefully this means better iTunes (maybe) and better Mobile Me. Everything will get faster
no not faster more space.