Saturday, July 7, 2012


The Cloud with a silver lining

In continuing one of my previous posts about platforms and ecosystems, I think its time I laid out my perspective of an emerging trend, often referred to as ‘Going To The Cloud’.

What the heck is this Cloud anyway?

Well, the Cloud, is nothing but a hard disk that is accessible through the internet. Thats it, and thats all.

So its that simple, so what is all this buzz all about?

What makes the Cloud interesting is the amount of innovative ways you can put it to use. Large vendors like Google and Amazon are able to offer this virtual storage on their vast server farms to their customers, enticing them to buy more and free content from them that can be stored on this internet hard disk, therefore its accessible from any internet enabled device.  Netflix takes it to the very extreme where you can view/stream media from Netflix servers, to any internet enabled device giving you the ability to pause your play on one device and resume it on another. Again, like I said, the concept of cloud is very simple, the usages are abound with innovation, often obscuring the very simple concept underneath it all, making it very mystical to the common user.

Why would anyone need a Cloud Service?

Anyone who needs access to their data from multiple locations, without worrying about having to maintain several copies and losing their data in case of their computer crashing or getting infected by a virus, needs a cloud service.
Personally, I highly recommend it. Its where the world is headed to, and seriously, it makes a whole lot of sense to keep all your important data securely in the cloud, and access it from any internet enabled device. If you still don’t get it, then stop reading, I give up, I can’t get through to you...

Aditya’s quick and highly opinionated guide to picking the right Cloud service

this goes back the concept of Ecosystem. Roughly defined, an Ecosystem is a amalgamate of Cloud enabled features and content offered by different vendors. Let me discuss the top few, and perhaps during that discussion, the concept will become clearer.

The Apple iCloud

The Apple iCloud consists of iTunes Store, where all crap load of media and apps are available for Apple Customers to purchase, which mystemagically (thats a word I made up) get synced to all Apple devices. The concept is simple. the Apple iTunes software operates on Apple’s Cloud called iCloud, and what you get for free is 5GB thick slice of that big iCloud cake. All the stuff you buy and have is kept on your personal slice of Apple Heaven, and that storage is common to all your Apple devices, thereby facilitating the syncing. Once you run out of space, your love for Apple will be put to the test, when you will be presented with the choice to either stop buyig Apple iTunes stuff, or give Apple money to give you a slice thicker than 5GB.
People who already are price insensitive (I assume so, because you already have an Apple device), or those who simply love Apple, and who are very heavily invested in iTunes and Apple TV etc, for their media, should certainly invest in iCloud.

The Amazon S3 storage

Similar to Apple, Amazon houses its flavour of the Cloud on what it calls the S3 storage Cloud. That too offers 5GB free storage and ideally meant for people with Kindle Fire Tablets who are heavily invested in the Amazon Ecosystem of the Amazon’s Store and the Amazon’s App store for Android.
Similar to Apple, if you need more storage, pay up, and you shall get it. Sadly, Amazon’s Cloud storage was the hardest one for me to understand and use.

Microsoft Skydrive

Microsoft has had Cloud storage for ever, but very few knew of it. It all started with Microsoft live, and now exists as Microsoft Skydrive. What I like about Skydrive is its tight integration with all Microsoft products, mainly Office and the OS in general. Again, you get 5GB of free Skydrive storage and the price increases as you need more. With Windows 8, Skydrive and Cloud storage will shine..and Microsoft will become a serious contender in the Cloud space with launching the Surface line of Tablets as well. It would be the the true (finally!) Microsoft Ecosystem with Windows 8, Surface Tablets and the Microsoft App store working together glued together by their Cloud a.k.a Skydrive.
Folks who are heavily invested in Microsoft tech, who only use Microsoft Office for their files and have Windows for home and office, who do not want any additional complexity, Skydrive is best for them, no doubt. Very soon, like I said before, the true power behind the Microsoft machine will be felt when Microsoft’s Ecosystem gets a reboot with Windows 8, Surface Tablets and The Microsoft App Store.

Google Drive

Google has had Cloud Storage for nearly forever a.k.a Google Docs. Google Docs offered you the ability to do most common Office related work online without needing any Office related software. Imagine it to be an online, scaled down version of Microsoft Office, except it's free and all you need is a web browser. With Google Drive, Google now has its own Android Ecosystem complete, with the Android Appstore, Google Drive+Docs and a crap load of Android Devices, including the recently launched Nexus 7 Tablets. As with other Cloud storages, you get 5GB free and then you can pay for more.

..And then the others

There are certainly other Cloud Storage options, which remain separated from the Vendor specific Ecosystems. These other Cloud Storages are ideal for folks (like me) who do not want to get hooked into one Ecosystem or another, who like more control and freedom use the best bits of all Ecosystems, and yet not get tied into any single one.
The better ones out there in my opinion are box.net, Dropbox and Dropplr. However, there are so many more that offer Cloud Storage options, feel free to search for them.
As with all services, you get a free chunk of space and and as your needs grow you can pay more to get more. Box.net boasts of a Cloud Platform, where they have exposed Cloud storage based APIs that allow developers to create apps that integrate with Box.net Cloud storage. Developers have writen box connectors to MS Office, for example, so can work on documents on your box storage right from within Ms Office. This is brilliant in my opinion, and they have my appreciation for opening themselves up to crowd based innovation. In my opinion, they will go far.
Dropbox is great to, its drop dead simple, cross platform and ‘it just works’ flawlessly. Its great for non-tech users, but as far as I know, they remain 'not-as-open' to developers.
Dropplr is somewhere in the middle, it is also simple and by far the cheapest Cloud Solution I know of.
I like all of three, they have their pros and cons.

My Advice

There is no single service that is ‘the best’. Pick the one that is right for you. Consider these for yourself, and make up your own mind..
1. Are you heavily invested in Apple, Google or Amazon? If yes, go for their version of the Cloud.
2. Do you wish to remain independent and not get tied into a particular vendor? Then, pick an independent Cloud provider (I recommend checking out the three I mentioned above).
   - Are you a hacky geek who likes to muck around in the Cloud space and develop apps and stuff? Go to box.net.

But hey, all of them offer free storage, definitely GET ALL THE FREE STORAGE YOU CAN.


The lesser Clouds

There are services like Crashplan and Carbonite that simply offer unattended back-ups to Cloud based storage. Your files are simply copied over to their Cloud and you can retrieve them if you want in case of a crash. Nothing fancy, very barebones, but the same cloud concept underneath it all.
For folks, who are simply interested in drop dead simple backups, these two services are pretty much the best.

There are services like Cloud-Ide and Cloud9 that offer developers browser based IDEs which can be used to develop software without the need to get desktop installed development tools. I love the idea, it's pretty cool, however, these IDEs have not yet matured and are very buggy at the moment.

The Cloud is here to stay. Whether or not you see its silver lining depends on what kind of relationship you cultivate with this concept. Whether you like it or not, you will have no choice but to Cloud-ify yourself. So get onto the Cloud now!

So says I.