Every cloud has a silver lining. (or so it is said)

Published 28 August 8 1:55 PM | William Bruce

One thing that the IT industry excels at is finding new meanings for old words.  Over the past few years, the term "cloud computing" has been popping up with an increased frequency. Cloud systems are essentially distributed applications provided as a service.  The principle benefit of the cloud approach is that all of the infrastructure is supplied in an online redundant system that allows customers to have confidence that the system is more resilient than systems that are installed on individual computers or data centers.

Many are already using cloud systems without realizing it.  Google's gMail application, Picasa, and flickr are all cloud systems.  Amazon's S3 service and the JungleDisk provide users an online data store for reasonable prices.  Apple and Microsoft have both endeavored to provide cloud systems as well. 

This summer, Apple released the MobileMe system.  Essentially and update the the .MAC service, MobileMe is a small suite of web applications that allow for better synchronization between different Mac systems.  I have been using it to maintain and synchronize calendars between my iPhone, Powerbook Pro, and iMac with great success. 

Microsoft is not too far behind in offering the LiveMesh system addition to the WindowsLive services suite.  LiveMesh is a distributed computer synchronization tool that allows users to designate folders on multiple computers that can be kept synchronized across multiple computers.  I use about four PCs in my life to maintain my workload and personal interests.  As a result, I may be at any of them when I need access to something on another.  With LiveMesh, all my critical files are on all of my computers.  As they change, they are updated on all systems.  This has been invaluable for my application development projects.  LiveMesh also includes a remote desktop feature that allows web access to any of my synchronized systems.

Both systems are worth some examination:

MobileMe:  www.me.com

LiveMesh:  www.mesh.com

Comments

# dr. bob said on September 3, 2008 2:49 PM:

thanks for keeping us up to date on new developments. it makes me nervous, the idea of giving others access to my critical files. are there security or privacy issues?

# William Bruce said on September 3, 2008 3:51 PM:

Any confidential files I am uploading are encrypted, but that's a fair point.  I suppose each of these systems is only as secure as the authentication system they've deployed.  Both use the same login system for major e-commerce, so I am sure they are fairly robust.  

# dr. bob said on September 4, 2008 5:50 PM:

thanks, if they were encrypted, i'd be less nervous. but i hate those login systems that make you change your 40-character password every other week!