Fedora's Cloud Future (and, self (re-)introduction)

[Dan]

At the risk of being unduly pragmatic ... it seems to me that for the user/business with a modicum of intelligence, judgement and a healthy distrust of things distrust-able ... there are good uses for both cloud and discrete storage and software functions. The trick is to only render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's ... and keep the rest in-house.

Personally, after many years of having a "web presence" I find that due to misplaced trust and stupidly allowing my "shields" to drop, I have far too large of a "web footprint" for my liking. There's not a helluvalot I can do about it now, though. I can, however, with reasonable accuracy, predict both trends and ignominious behaviors. And, by the same methods, also therefore individual, corporate -- and government -- misdeeds and misuses.

Given that reality ... I find I'm not so much inclined to become any more "cloud dependent" than I already am.

In a dreamy-eyed Utopian setting in which all men were honourable, and all goals and agendas were reliably benign, the cloud could indeed be an incredibly useful and powerful tool. But reality has a far different spoor. We just don't live in that world.

Yet.

[beaker_]

Originally Posted by stevea

I'm told the post-modern viewpoint is that there is no privacy or security and you'd better get used to the notion. OTOH I hear this from ppl who find it necessary to twitter a report on every bodily function.

And the answer to such post-modern viewpoint is a resounding, "&^$# you!"

[billybob linux]

Reading the excellent posts so far about this, I can't help thinking that many early adopters may have jumped on the "Cloud" Bandwagon without checking to see how secure the wheels are with the result that the wheels will fall off somewhere down the road.

I might be wrong but many valid points have been made here with not very convincing assurances (mostly relating to trust/security and availability) as things stand right now it's going to be a hard sell to the folks around here.

Matt when you said:

Some people are already arguing that free software is now irrelevant, and that open data and open apis take its place. I'm not so sure that's the case.

As I read that it sounds like, if free software is not available for applications locally then we will be forced to use the " Cloud" in some way or other, again that might just be my interpretation. I have read articles pushing the theory that everything will be done through the browser, again pushing the "Cloud" concept. That will put a lot of pressure on browser development and security and a security hole in one of the major browsers could cause chaos on a scale we might not yet have seen if a good chunk of the work done locally is pushed to the "Cloud" through the browser.

Food for thought indeed.

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by DBelton

Also, from a data storage standpoint, I don't see any benefit either, and would actually cost more than keeping the data locally.

For example, my hard drives average life span has been 8 years. The last 2 TB hard drive I purchased was a WD Caviar black, and costed me US$129.00.

So, calculating the cost over the average lifetime of my drives, that 2TB of storage costs me US$1.34 per month.

Can I get 2TB of cloud storage for $1.34 per month?

If you'll indulge me for a minute, let me look at this from a business perspective before coming back to the home use. From that perspective — not even "cloud" — it's typical for storage to cost about $0.10 a gigabyte per month — or 150× your cost. That seems crazy, but pushing reliablility, availability, and disaster recovery to the levels people really want for work is just plain expensive.

But obviously that's no good for home use. Buying two drives for mirroring and maybe rsyncing regularly to a friend's house gives you pretty good reliability (and better if you buy two drives from different makers on a staggered schedule, to decrease the odds of simultaneous failure), and you're still only up to $5/month or so for all that data.

It's possible that cloud storage will eventually scale to the point where it makes economic sense from that point of view. But more likely, it will scale to the point where it's a) cheap enough and b) built in to offerings from commercial operating systems, where the convenience becomes seductive. Buy a new computer, log in, and your stuff is just there. And connected with your phone and tablet and also your spouse's shared files, without needing to know anything about IT.

Is there some way we can make some of this convenience available to Fedora users, at a reasonable-enough cost, and without sacrificing privacy and openness?

---------- Post added at 11:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Dan

My whole understanding of this "cloud" thing is a little cloudy itself. That being said, I would hazard a guess that the following list of things I have used at one time or another might qualify as a "cloud" experience.

[ list snipped ]

But it seems to me that with the exception of Google Docs for active collaboration, most of the above would just as easily fall into the category of a normal web surfing/research experience, and not specifically a "cloud" defined function.

So ... my definition of the "cloud" is obviously erroneous. No?

Well, I don't want to tilt too hard at windmills — clearly, some people are using cloud to refer to "anything on the internet". But I think it's more useful for a meaningful conversation to use the more restricted definition.

---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 AM ----------

Originally Posted by ocratato

This discussion is becoming polarised. On one side Matt is concentrating on how to use Fedora as the basis for a cloud service. On the other Dan, and perhaps most of the rest of us, are looking at it from the user's perspective.

Well, there's several layers. Fedora can be the basis of cloud service infrastructure, and it can run as a guest in IaaS clouds, and it's obviously also a client operating system which can be the local gateway to cloud services. I want to address all of those.

Originally Posted by ocratato

I suspect the problem many of have is that the cloud appears to be a solution looking for a problem. The open source nature of Fedora and the applications that run on it negate the benefits of most "software-as-a-service" aspects. The cost of network access puts a big dampener on the hardware side. There doesn't seem to be much left for us ordinary home or small office users - the core users of Fedora.

So, one important role I'm hearing that Fedora can fill is to be a non-cloud option. Especially as mobile phone convergence increases, commercial operating systems are going to be increasingly locked down, increasingly "app-store" focused, and increasingly tied to commercial cloud offerings. General-purpose desktops and laptops are going to become more and more niche — like it or not. But, on the plus side, Fedora can be really strong in that niche.

Originally Posted by ocratato

Perhaps we need to think about how we can improve the experience of the ordinary Fedora user. What benefits could a cloud like service provide? The big one that comes to my mind is collaboration - allowing a team to work together seamlessly would be an impressive achievement.

And this, too. I think technologies like OwnCloud are a vital part, but we still have to figure out how it can all fit together.

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by stevea

Hmmm when Iook at that list of benefits ...

To be clear, the definition is not meant to be a list of benefits. It's a list of characteristics, with no value judgement as to whether they're a good thing or not. They just are.

Originally Posted by stevea

Probably more important that any of the above to end-users, the cloud potentially give 'anywhere' access to your data&apps.

This is what "broad network access" means, actually. And I agree, it's a huge one for home users.

Originally Posted by stevea

- Who want's to play & experiment on a system that you are paying a rate for access and use ? I don't mind running a benchmark or building an odd kernel just for the experience. It costs me a fraction of a cent for power, as I already own excess capacity.

I think that's a concern for the cloud providers to address. Many services, like Red Hat's own OpenShift, take this into account and offer a minimal level at no cost. And Amazon offers a "free tier" for many of their services (although for one year only).

I expect that the profile for most Fedora users includes wanting to be able to play and experiment locally.

[Bazu135]

Originally Posted by mattdm

So, one important role I'm hearing that Fedora can fill is to be a non-cloud option. Especially as mobile phone convergence increases, commercial operating systems are going to be increasingly locked down, increasingly "app-store" focused, and increasingly tied to commercial cloud offerings. General-purpose desktops and laptops are going to become more and more niche — like it or not. But, on the plus side, Fedora can be really strong in that niche.

That, for me, is a massive 'must have' for an OS - not that it be exclusively non-cloud, but that a fully-functional non-cloud option exists. Taking Fedora as-is right now; I can use it as a completely stand-alone OS, or - through it - I can use services like DropBox, for example; there is no notable change in functionality whether I store my files or work locally or online, transfer speeds etc permitting. Some of the services I've heard proposed (admittedly by companies/salesmen heavily invested in the Cloud, who are best served by having it become as large and all-pervasive as possible) frankly sound awful to me - much as I'm sure they'd consider me a Luddite for this, the idea of signing in locally and having all my files etc online doesn't appeal at all. Even worse, I've heard talk of hosting the entire OS online and effectively remotely logging in from a home terminal - how many ways could that go wrong?!

Trying to add something constructive to consider...

My main concern about the Cloud is the 'CIA triad' - Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability. Are my files private, are they safe, and will I be able to access them at any given time? Obviously, the answer to that will always have a "but" or an asterisk whether the Cloud's involved or not, but I certainly feel like that 'but' is less prominent if stored locally. This, unfortunately, isn't something that I can see Fedora being able to address too easily.

Tossing an idea out brainstorming-style; I'm not particularly well-versed in security, but is this scenario possible? I'm imagining an application/service that would integrate with the main OS that, when you upload a file to the Cloud, would strongly encrypt it - I'm thinking like a 2048-bit RSA private key sort of strength (with an optional password?). You can transfer that private key to, say, your home PC, your laptop and your phone (assuming an equivalent app were developed), which would enable you to access those uploaded files only from those devices - it prevents you hopping onto your friend's PC to access them without bringing the key with you, yes, but that's a trade-off I'd be willing to make for the added security. The main concern there would be smooth integration and ease of use, but given that it basically involves creating and copying a file on the user's part, ease shouldn't be too difficult to achieve?

For me, something to that effect would provide a more acceptable middle ground - I can choose to upload my files if I so desire (creating a mount point for the online directory, maybe?) with the knowledge that, at the very least, if anyone else did get hold of them, they'd be useless. Availability and protection of the files is entirely the storage provider's responsibility, but it'd put me a step closer towards being interested.

[DBelton]

This is becoming a very good discussion and I wish to thank matt for coming in here and starting this up. He has taken points (good and bad) and hasn't glossed over the bad only hyping up the good points, explaining things in a very easy to understand way.

I wish more of the developers would do the same thing before going off on tangents that causes major upheavals in the user community.

Now, I am not totally against cloud storage or cloud computing. It has its place where it can be a major benefit to a lot of people. I just don't feel that it is a full time solution for anyone except maybe just a hand full of people.

For example, say business A has their computational horsepower sized so that their systems are running at 95% capacity 99% of the time. Now some event comes up that causes a dramatic temporary increase in their business and their existing systems can't handle the load. Knowing that the increase is only temporary, they could pull in some extra horsepower from cloud servers, and not waste money purchasing new hardware for an event that is temporary.

On the other side, if company A's business has increased and it's due to growth in the business, then it's going to be more of a permanent increase, and so they should upsize their own hardware accordingly.

Companies learned awhile back that sometimes dumping the processing off on someone else isn't necessarily the cheaper route to take, too. There were numerous businesses back 20-30 years ago that went with outsourcing their processing, and realized that it costed them more money. Why? They couldn't depreciate and deduct the hardware costs once they outsourced. This added up to millions of dollars in tax breaks for some companies.

[ikamusume]

Originally Posted by mattdm

There is some seriously awesome cloud-related work going on in Fedora — many of the features for F18, for example

Which features and in what way are they "cloud"?

[DBelton]

Well, with F18.

They are planning on Eucalyptus, Heat, OpenShift Origin, OpenStack Folsom, ownCloud, and probably several more that I forgot

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Eucalyptus
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Heat
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OpenShift_Origin
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OpenStack_Folsom
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OwnCloud