Comments on: Computers Without Borders: Cloud Computing and Political Manipulation http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/ Internet news and commentary Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:10:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Drifting along in the cloud | Dick Sblog http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-686121 Drifting along in the cloud | Dick Sblog Fri, 30 May 2008 17:16:36 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-686121 [...] There’s an interesting post on the profy blog, “Computers Without Borders: Cloud Computing and Political Manipulation” looks at the implications of political control of the developing ‘cloud’, the network of networks that is increasingly providing the opportunity to deliver services down the wire, rather than off a local drive or server. Political control of the Internet always seems like a fairly boring topic but this posting makes a good point about education. [...] [...] There’s an interesting post on the profy blog, “Computers Without Borders: Cloud Computing and Political Manipulation” looks at the implications of political control of the developing ‘cloud’, the network of networks that is increasingly providing the opportunity to deliver services down the wire, rather than off a local drive or server. Political control of the Internet always seems like a fairly boring topic but this posting makes a good point about education. [...]

]]> By: Leslie Poston http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-653761 Leslie Poston Mon, 26 May 2008 18:57:58 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-653761 Oh, please politics most definitely has implications here. We have countries refusing to do business with some of our companies based here in the States because of the Patriot Act, for starters, and you're telling me politics isn't an issue? Network neutrality is definitely politics meets big business, and it directly affects online applications, cloud computing and how people access their data (or don't, if it goes badly in the vote on the issue). Whole cities are unable to communicate or share data online in parts of Europe because of politics. It is a huge, huge issue. Oh, please politics most definitely has implications here. We have countries refusing to do business with some of our companies based here in the States because of the Patriot Act, for starters, and you're telling me politics isn't an issue? Network neutrality is definitely politics meets big business, and it directly affects online applications, cloud computing and how people access their data (or don't, if it goes badly in the vote on the issue). Whole cities are unable to communicate or share data online in parts of Europe because of politics. It is a huge, huge issue.

]]> By: Grendel http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-653411 Grendel Mon, 26 May 2008 18:28:40 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-653411 If you're writing for less technically savvy readers, it's even MORE important to be correct, because you may be setting their initial understanding of the concept. There is NO political connections or implications to cloud computing. Cloud computing is an alternative to hosted or co-located servers. It's an alternative to building out your own data center or servers, giving both a lower starting cost and flexibility to scale up or down as needed. If you’re writing for less technically savvy readers, it’s even MORE important to be correct, because you may be setting their initial understanding of the concept.

There is NO political connections or implications to cloud computing. Cloud computing is an alternative to hosted or co-located servers. It’s an alternative to building out your own data center or servers, giving both a lower starting cost and flexibility to scale up or down as needed.

]]> By: Leslie Poston http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-651621 Leslie Poston Mon, 26 May 2008 14:59:38 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-651621 I agree that that is a part of what cloud computing is that I haven't touched on more than tangentially here, the uses for being an application engine. And while I mentioned it briefly, it isn't the focus of the article This article is for people who may not be as technologically savvy as yourself, who comes from the developer side of things, to help them understand how politics can affect cloud computing and networks and how that affects them. Cyndy tends to touch on the developer side of things here fairly frequently, so there is a link to her article on cloud computing in there as well to satisfy any hunger for a developers' view on it. I agree that that is a part of what cloud computing is that I haven’t touched on more than tangentially here, the uses for being an application engine. And while I mentioned it briefly, it isn’t the focus of the article

This article is for people who may not be as technologically savvy as yourself, who comes from the developer side of things, to help them understand how politics can affect cloud computing and networks and how that affects them.

Cyndy tends to touch on the developer side of things here fairly frequently, so there is a link to her article on cloud computing in there as well to satisfy any hunger for a developers’ view on it.

]]> By: Grendel http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-650951 Grendel Mon, 26 May 2008 13:43:21 +0000 http://profy.com/2008/05/25/cloudcomputingpolitics/#comment-650951 Cloud computing is not a vague concept, and it's not what you're talking about here... As far as I can tell, what you're talking about is the "internet" (it's a series of tubes) and/or distributed computing grids, a la SETI@Home. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are NOT cloud computing, although they're more and more often being deployed on cloud computing providers. Cloud computing is best defined by the best-known examples: Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine. It's providing compute power as a service without the hassle of setting up hardware and the OS. It's often implemented using virtualization and provides external APIs to scale your processing capacity up or down. Cloud computing is not a vague concept, and it’s not what you’re talking about here… As far as I can tell, what you’re talking about is the “internet” (it’s a series of tubes) and/or distributed computing grids, a la SETI@Home. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are NOT cloud computing, although they’re more and more often being deployed on cloud computing providers.

Cloud computing is best defined by the best-known examples: Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine. It’s providing compute power as a service without the hassle of setting up hardware and the OS. It’s often implemented using virtualization and provides external APIs to scale your processing capacity up or down.

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