Look up! Clouds are gathering over the internet. Some may have silver linings. Others are most certainly storm clouds.
These clouds are computing clouds – cloud computing. If it’s a new term to you now, it won’t be for long. These clouds will change the way you use your computer and the way you use your music, video and photo libraries. Forever.
Major corporate players already have cloud computing programmed into their future profiles and profits. Key indicators among these are Microsoft and Oracle.
Oracle promises that cloud computing will ‘transform the way we design, build and deliver applications’, while Microsoft has routes into Cloudland neatly mapped out for consumers and small businesses, underscored by a White Paper unapologetically entitled How Microsoft is Writing the Future of Cloud Computing. This isn’t about to go away…
One of the promises being made is a new freedom of access – whether it’s a board meeting or family reunion, you can expect to be able to call up documents, pictures, video and anything else you might presently copy to memory stick or portable hard drive before leaving ‘your’ computer. The same goes for your MP3 ‘media’ player.
And that’s significant. Because while the smartphone is becoming more personalised, your computer is becoming less significant. It’s going to be reduced to a point of access to the clouds and interclouds that will provide all the storage, computing horsepower and services you use. It’s almost a reprise of the ‘dumb terminals’ associated with early mainframes.
Inside the cloud
The first use of the term cloud computing I can find is in a lecture given by Professor Ramnath Chellappa in 1997 – a specialist in information systems and operations management. He described it as ‘a computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by rationale rather than technical limits’.
The cloud concept, however, has its roots in the sixties, with American computer/cognitive scientist John McCarthy – who also introduced us to Artificial Intelligence in 1955, and received a Turing Award for his contributions to the AI field. He suggested that ‘computation may someday be organised as a public utility’.
Essentially, cloud computing supports on-demand computational resources via a computer network – very much like an electricity grid or telephone network. In this way, tools or applications are accessed through a web browser as if they were programs installed locally on a computer. Users will no longer need any computer smarts or control over the technology infrastructure. It will all be apps.
So where does that leave the music fan? And the movie fan? And just about everybody else who uses a computer for any media management or storage?
Cloud systems are about to change our media habits out of all recognition, moving us away from local hard drives to cloud servers spread around the world. ‘Your net-devices will access your library collection wirelessly, streaming from remote servers,’ came the early call from on-the-ball US blog Puddlegum. That was in 2008.
‘Everything from your operating system to your digital photos will no longer be stored on your local PC,’ it warned. ‘Exchange your Notebook for a Netbook, because you’ll no longer think about downloading music files to your computer. Music players, such as the iPod Touch, already have the capabilities to mobilise your entire music library.’
There’s more…
Plenty more. Some of it’s rather familiar. And some of it’s scary.
Both Google and Apple have been beaten to the ‘music locker’ market by Amazon. While Apple and Google were expected to launch their services at the end of 2010, it is Amazon's Cloud Drive that has turned up first.
Cloud Drive offers access to the company's web servers for storage of around 1,000 songs – for free. In proper ‘cloud style’, they can be accessed though web browsers and smartphones running Google Android software.
But news agency Reuters has been quick to warn of a ‘backlash from the music industry that could ignite a legal battle’ very recently.
With Amazon shares rising 3.1 per cent in response to the launch, Reuters described Sony Music as ‘upset’ by Amazon's decision to launch the service without new licenses for music streaming: ‘We hope that they'll reach a new license deal,’ said Sony Music’s Liz Young. ‘But we’re keeping all of our legal options open…’
In fact, Amazon had announced Cloud Drive in advance of any dialogue with the major record labels.’I’ve never seen a company of their size make an announcement, launch a service and simultaneously say they're trying to get licenses,’ said a ‘somewhat stunned’ and anonymous source close to the behind-closed-doors discussion.
‘The [major] labels have engaged in a legal terror campaign over the past 10 years, using litigation to try and slow technology progress,’ responded MP3tunes founder, Michael Robertson.
Beyond the bog-standard computing cloud, lies the intercloud. This is an interconnected global ‘cloud of clouds’. Pretty inevitable really – rather like the internet is a ‘network of networks’. There is no limit to the size of clouds, it seems. Or their repercussions.
Last year’s Cloud Connect conference heard how the ‘biggest cloud on the planet’ is ‘controlled by a vast criminal enterprise that uses that botnet to send spam, hack computers, spread malware and steal personal information and money’.
Cloudbusting
It’s time to add another stop to the round-the-world tradeshow tour.
Because consumer media services were not its primary target, cloud computing has already established a show culture based on altogether more geeky interests. But, with the spadework done, it’s time to register our own. It’s too late to shanghai the agenda for the coming Cloud Computing World Forum, set to take place in London in June, but there are others to follow in Latin America, India and Asia.
Who will take the initiative on behalf of audio?
See also:
Life, the Cloud and Everything