[lug] You missed it: Trent Hein of Applied Trust on Cloud Computing

[Maxwell Spangler]

I really enjoyed last night's talk on cloud computing by Trent Hein of
AppliedTrust.com.  Thanks goes to Trent and Jeff for scheduling him.

Some of the highlights I noted:

* An expectation that possibly up to 80% of some traditionally owned and
operated server activity will be in the cloud five years from now.

* An example of where the cloud fails: pretty much anything where you
are required to have strong control over your data, programs and
processes for high security / high privacy requirements.

* An example of where the cloud succeeds: A company promoting an event
such as a concert or movie launch where there will be a spike in traffic
to web based services and additional servers are needed to meet the
need.  Instead of buying physical assets, wiring up racks and doing all
that work, just rent space on the cloud based servers as needed for as
long as you need and get the job done.

* It's easy to spin up new virtual resources in the cloud, so easy that
you spin them up and forget to spin them down.  It's a lot harder to
order 5 new 50k servers and "forget" you bought them a month later.

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
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        Linux System Administration / Computing Services
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