Invisible wrote:
> I'm just wondering what all these people are apparently using cloud 
> computing *for*... I can't think of a good reason.

All the "web-scale" applications that don't want to buy their own machines. 
Reddit, facebook, twitter, etc.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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>> I'm just wondering what all these people are apparently using cloud 
>> computing *for*... I can't think of a good reason.
> 
> All the "web-scale" applications that don't want to buy their own 
> machines. Reddit, facebook, twitter, etc.

You would have thought Facebook could afford to buy the entire Internet 
multiple times over...

Still not sure what use this is to the average Joe on the street.

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Invisible wrote:
> You would have thought Facebook could afford to buy the entire Internet 
> multiple times over...

I wouldn't think so.

> Still not sure what use this is to the average Joe on the street.

OK, so you want to render a thirty-minute POV video, where each second takes 
two CPU-minutes to calculate. Begin now.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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>> Still not sure what use this is to the average Joe on the street.
> 
> OK, so you want to render a thirty-minute POV video, where each second 
> takes two CPU-minutes to calculate. Begin now.

How is this any different to me just going out and buying a big 
computer? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that you're 
renting compute power rather than buying it. (And as we all know, buying 
is usually cheaper than renting except for one-offs.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New wrote:
> OK, so you want to render a thirty-minute POV video, where each second
> takes two CPU-minutes to calculate. Begin now.

Should I resurrect my BOINC-POVRay project and get everyone in povray.off-
topic to join and contribute CPU? It wouldn't cost me money that way :)

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> How is this any different to me just going out and buying a big 
> computer?

Or going out and buying a couple hundred big computers?  To do a week-long 
render? Then what?

 > As far as I can tell, the only difference is that you're
> renting compute power rather than buying it. 

For many "cloud" providers, yes, that's exactly the difference. Plus, you're 
renting by the hour, rather than by the month or year.  Why would you by 20 
high-end computers and rack them up in your house if you can rent it from 
someone else?

For Google, you're using proprietary APIs on their cloud, so if you want to 
take the bulk of it into your own machines, you can't. Until now, which is 
what that announcement was about.

> (And as we all know, buying 
> is usually cheaper than renting except for one-offs.)

It depends on how much you get with your rental. Maintenance? Backups? Rack 
space? Electricity?  Disaster planning? You still have to pay to run the 
things, and you still have to have stand-by capacity for overloads.

Of course, with something like Amazon, you can rent until your capacity 
warrants buying processors. And then you can use Amazon to handle the 
overflow, or the seasonal rush, or the new product announcement, or whatever.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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>> How is this any different to me just going out and buying a big computer?
> 
> Or going out and buying a couple hundred big computers?  To do a 
> week-long render? Then what?

The average person can't afford to buy a hundred big computers. But 
then, the average person can't afford to rent a hundred big computers in 
a cloud either. So it seems like a moot comparison to me.

>> (And as we all know, buying is usually cheaper than renting except for 
>> one-offs.)
> 
> It depends on how much you get with your rental. Maintenance? Backups? 
> Rack space? Electricity?  Disaster planning? You still have to pay to 
> run the things, and you still have to have stand-by capacity for overloads.

If things like maintenance, backups and disaster planning are important 
to you, then yes, cloud computing probably makes a lot of sense. But if 
you're just some dude trying to render stuff with POV-Ray, it makes far 
less sense.

> Of course, with something like Amazon, you can rent until your capacity 
> warrants buying processors. And then you can use Amazon to handle the 
> overflow, or the seasonal rush, or the new product announcement, or 
> whatever.

Only makes sense if you're using the system to provide a service to 
somebody else. If you're just running a computation for your own benefit 
then there aren't going to be "rushes" or "overflows".

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The average person can't afford to buy a hundred big computers. But 
> then, the average person can't afford to rent a hundred big computers in 
> a cloud either. 

Nonsense. Amazon's computers are like $0.09/hour.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing

100 "small" amazon computers are $9/hour.

> If things like maintenance, backups and disaster planning are important 
> to you, then yes, cloud computing probably makes a lot of sense. But if 
> you're just some dude trying to render stuff with POV-Ray, it makes far 
> less sense.

It depends how fast you need things.

> Only makes sense if you're using the system to provide a service to 
> somebody else. If you're just running a computation for your own benefit 
> then there aren't going to be "rushes" or "overflows".

You asked for a good reason; I gave you several.  Some of us actually make 
money with computers.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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>> The average person can't afford to buy a hundred big computers. But 
>> then, the average person can't afford to rent a hundred big computers 
>> in a cloud either. 
> 
> Nonsense. Amazon's computers are like $0.09/hour.
> 
> http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing
> 
> 100 "small" amazon computers are $9/hour.

...which works out to $216/day or $1,512/month - which is slightly 
outside most people's budget.

By contrast, buy a big computer, put it in your loft, leave it running 
all year. It'll cost maybe £500 to buy in the first place, but at the 
end of a year you'll have a finished result.

> You asked for a good reason; I gave you several.  Some of us actually 
> make money with computers.

Some *companies* make money with computers; it's news to me that 
individual people can do this.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> ...which works out to $216/day or $1,512/month - which is slightly 
> outside most people's budget.

What, $2/day for a 24-hour pov-ray renderer? If you only need 100 compute
rs 
for a day, $216 is really not a whole lot of money.

> By contrast, buy a big computer, put it in your loft, leave it running 

> all year. It'll cost maybe £500 to buy in the first place, but at 
the 
> end of a year you'll have a finished result.

Well, sure. You can buy one computer and take a month to do something, or
 
rent 100 and take a couple hours to do something. Note that if your progr
am 
takes a year, that's 100 computers for about 1.2 days, so you come out 
ahead. Admittedly, you don't have the computer at the end of the year, bu
t 
you saved a year's worth of time and electricity too.

> Some *companies* make money with computers; it's news to me that 
> individual people can do this.

Uh, OK. I'm sorry to hear that.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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