Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/14320
T T ere has been a lot of buzz around the “cloud” during the past few years, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m pretty sick of it. Don’t get me wrong, I am actually a huge fan of “cloud computing” (Can we stop calling it that?), and I leverage it every day in my professional and personal lives. T e problem with the cloud, as I see it, is that it is largely misunderstood by consumers and over-hyped by many vendors. T ese two issues go hand in hand, as all too often marketers are using consumer ignorance to their advantage. T e situation becomes amplifi ed when the marketing departments of companies don’t quite understand the situ- ation, and manage to persuade companies to move “to the cloud,” even when it makes hor- ribly little sense. But I digress. Let’s start with this: Just what is this cloud thing anyway? I like to keep things simple: T e cloud is remote-access computer resources. I’ll dial it back even further: T e cloud is a computer somewhere other than where you are that you can store fi les on or even use to do some compute work remotely. Sure, it’s more complicated than that if you consider the scheduling and management software required to allow thousands of consum- ers to interact with thousands of computers. But, in the end, the actual benefi t to the consumer is nothing more than being able to conveniently leverage computer resources that they do not own, manage, or house. Indeed, the cloud is just someone else’s computer that you get to borrow via the Inter- net. T at’s right, welcome back to the future, where all you need is a thin client connected to a terminal. Hello? T e 1980s would like their idea back. But the cloud sounds so much cooler than thin client computing, right? Okay, maybe not. If the cloud really is that simple, why are so many companies rushing to push their ap- plications into it? I’d like to propose that there are three main categories of corporate cloud compulsion (sounds like a disorder because it often is). First, there are those companies that legitimately have a cool use for remotely hosted compute resources, such as Backblaze or Sales- Force. Next, you have companies that see a tan- gible benefi t in the area of licensing and main- tenance, and simply want to jump on the hype bandwagon. And, fi nally, you have companies that are merely chasing after hype or are so afraid of missing a trend that they blindly chase after it without understanding how or why it would be useful to their consumers. In the wrong hands, the licensing and main- tenance could be really scary, and that is the one category I’d like to focus on because I think it is what will drive a lot of improper cloud off erings in the next few years. Cloud computing enables smaller businesses or those with fewer resources to do large-compute tasks. Cloudy Days? SAAS (software as a service) has been a hot topic among VC (visual communications) and MBA types for a few years now. By allow- ing users to run software via a server that the company controls, that company can monitor customer usage directly and charge you ac- cordingly. Presumably, the fi rm can prevent piracy at the same time, since you no longer install applications on a local system. Used responsibly, this can be advantageous to both the vendor and the customer, as it allows a sort of “pay as you play” way to work with an application. What could go wrong, you ask? Here are some examples, but before I begin, let me preface this by saying, “Yes. I know these things may be rectifi ed at some time in the fu- ture.” And we’ll get to that. For now, let’s talk about the present. Using a remote server to use your mission- critical application puts you on a tether. You must be connected and have a fast connection for a reasonable experience. At this point, you have just introduced a single point of failure into your workfl ow. Not super exciting for someone who spends eight hours a day in front of his or her main applications. Perhaps this is not too scary if you have a nice fat Inter- net connection at home or the offi ce, but con- sider traveling or just working remotely for the day as a change of pace. I, for one, do not want to depend on my local Wi-Fi hotspot in order to work reliably in my 3D application of choice. Even with a consistent connection, la- tency continues to be the plague of fully inter- active cloud-based tools. One could point to the fact that games and MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) have been running on the “cloud” for years now, but generally the only thing happening on the remote server is inter-player coordination. T e game itself is still running locally on your system. Another important factor to consider is in- tellectual property. You might be the sort of person who is comfortable hosting your data remotely. But consider this: Not everyone is working with data that they own. If I am a freelance artist working on an illustration for Disney, how will the company feel if I am cre- ating the artwork leveraging a server hosted by a third party? T is is not an intractable prob- lem, of course, but it is one of many niggling issues that have yet to be worked out. In fact, I recently watched the reaction of many profes- sional 3D users when a software vendor an- nounced that the Amazon EC2 network was to be used as a renderfarm. T e idea seems perfect. T e rates are very inexpensive, and you have thousands of cores at your disposal. But the honest reaction from the users was, “T is is really cool. Too bad I can’t use it.” T e reason was IP safety and contractual obliga- tions with their clients. At the same time, an even larger company announced that it would allow a trial version of its main application “via the cloud” (that is, run- ning on a remote server). T is, the fi rm claimed, would be a perfect way to evaluate its applica- tion. Mind you, this is a many-thousand-dollar application that requires signifi cant hardware. I can understand how it came to this idea, and I can nearly see the panicked mid- level product marketing team struggling with ways to “lever- age the cloud” to extend business. After all, this is a hot topic. We simply must act! Right? No. T is is perhaps the most egre- gious example of corporate cloud compulsion. Hosting a monolithic 3D application on a re- mote server is not a workable long-term solu- tion for any professional 3D artist, so why on earth would it be a reasonable way to evaluate the application? Here at Luxology, when run- July 2010 69 Image © Gelmi. Image ©Simon van de Lagemaat.