5 replies to this topic

[zanzibarjones]

I have been thinking about Cloud computing for a while now, and I don't see the point of it. I just don't understand why someone would rent a server to work on for a few hours a day? What is the point? And it's virtual anyway, not like there are real pieces of hardware you are leasing, so to speak.

But would you ever consider using a Real Hosted Desktop running XP Pro, Vista or 7?
I mean a real physical machine, that you rent/lease/use for say $10 a month?
The company would have the machines at their offices, say 50 of them. You could log in securely however you choose to do so, Logmein, RDP, Hamachi+uVNC, whatever. I can see advantages to some of this. Things like for streaming media, running automated tasks, etc.

I guess my main thought would be, that you could log in, start an automated task, it would do it for you for however long you tell it to run
Or say you download somethign like Orb, a streamin app, and put your files on there, and stream it using the hosted companies bandwidth. Or if you have limited bandwidth at home and you don't want to go over your alotted usage limits, you could use the hosted desktop to do it for you.

Just some ideas and thoughts. What do you think?

[The Simpleton]

I wouldn't use such a service for all of my work, but for some part of my work which isn't very important, sure, I would consider using cloud computing. But I don't see the point in paying for the service, because there are many sites providing cloud computing services for free, with a reasonable amount of space. Microsoft offers 25GB for free if I'm not wrong? For people who don't like storing lots of private data on an unknown server, this is more than enough.

[joycerimes]

For me, using cloud services is efficient for any company. It is basically the storing of data in clouds or simply internet.

[k_nitin_r]

Hosted desktops are pretty useful if you want to legally use software but cannot afford to buy a license for it. I had to use a hosted destop on a Citrix solution from university for using IBM's SPSS software for statistical analysis. It was a whole lot cheaper than having to purchase a license to use the software and the hosted desktop was accessible from right within the browser. It was pretty easy to use and it was just like using remote desktop. I did have to install a plugin to access the hosted destop, so I am guessing that it was a kind of a remote desktop or a VNC solution.

Apart from using hosted desktops to use licensed software, one can also use hosted desktops for running automated data search software that retrieves web pages, searches for key words, and stores reports. You can get the software started and connect back to the hosted desktop later to check on the progress of the search.

I still prefer using a real desktop, considering that computers do not cost as much as they used to about two decades ago.

[eInfiniti]

I would rent a real physical computer. I think a lot of people will the needs to rent computers from time to time.

One may want to take a rented laptop on a trip and can use it on a flight or in a train, right? Although cloud service can do many different things for you, you have to have a machine to go online. You sometimes may only need a computer for a short period of time just like you sometimes need to rent a car locally or out of town.

Rental cars are relatively easy to manage by rental car companies because each rental doesn't normally alter the car much. It may not be so easy to deal with a computer that has been rented and returned. I mean who knows what has been done to it. Besides, computers are much cheaper than cars. Rental computer companies will probably find it very difficult to make money.

[soniat]

We use a cloud based solution and it is amazing.

Caloboration is easy. Back up is done and i dont have to worry about security its all done by an external company and the price is fantastic.

You dont need expensive pcs to run it.