Cloud future

We are on the verge of a new era of cloud computing

I don’t quite understand why we call remote server computing cloud. Of course, now it’s worth remembering ruvds, which launched a server in a balloon and Microsoft with a data center under water , but, in fact, we live “next to” the servers, which will soon become our main way of computing.

What is cloud computing? Roughly speaking, instead of the power of our computers, we use the power of remote computers to which we connect via the network.

If you dream a little, then soon we will no longer need powerful computers, and your old Pentium and GTX 460 computer (I write from this one) will be able to launch all new games. Well, I think it’s now clear why this is the future. But what is needed for this and what are we missing?

• Fast mobile networks with a minimum speed of at least 10 Gb / s The
  past MWC 2019 exhibition proved that such speeds will be available to us soon, because only the lazy company did not present its smartphone with 5G. In Russia, things are not going to be said with that, which is excellent, but like 4G, in spite of all the bans of mines. defense, I think 5G will quickly burst into our lives. At first, he will work not without sins, but over time everything will be decided, as was the case with 4G. I think 5G networks in large cities of Russia can be expected by 2021 already.
• Software
  Companies like Google, Apple, IBM and Ebay must break into the game because they have some of the largest data centers in the world that can provide us with great data transfer capabilities.

We already use programs in everyday life, which in the future will be used everywhere.

Cloud storage

We simply call them “clouds,” because this is so far the only technology that is used on an ongoing basis, or at least tried, probably all. Cloud storage data centers, like your disks, may burn out / wear out and your data may be lost, no one is safe from this. But the huge plus of the clouds is that you have access to all your files from any device with an Internet connection.

Most Popular Clouds (Storage Size Available for Free):

• Yandex Disk (10 GB + bonuses)
• Cloud Mail.ru (In 2013 - 1 TB, now - 8 GB)
• Dropbox (2 GB + bonuses)
• Google Drive (15 GB)
• MediaFire (10 GB + bonuses)
• Mega (Until 2017 - 50 GB, now - 15 GB + bonuses)
• pCloud (10 GB)
• OneDrive (5 GB)

The latter is already integrated into Windows in Explorer and connected to the account through which you entered the OS.

I am personally pleased that Yandex is now one of the key players in the cloud storage market. I have been using it for a long time and I have already accumulated more than 50 GB, just follow the stocks.

Thus, we can get rid of huge hard drives. An SSD can come in handy for quick recording of a downloaded file, but a large size is not needed, because it is needed mainly for temporary files, but this is also until the time when all programs will integrate with the clouds. This is a problem, because different applications will only integrate with the cloud storage that cooperates with them. For example, you use Yandex, and the program only supports Dropbox. This is partly solved by protocols such as WebDav / FTP, but so far there are many problems with them.

Web applications

Agree, it is very convenient when you can just enter the url address and use the necessary functionality. No need to download anything, download updates, etc. All web applications are in this category, because there are already a lot of them and can replace 90% of the programs installed on our computers. For example, Photopea , which is a good analogue of Photoshop. Although I would be glad that Adobe transferred all its software to the web, however, it is possible, but extremely difficult.

But suddenly you want the application to work offline. No problem, there are Electron and Ionic, which will turn any web application into a program on absolutely any OS. All this would not have happened if not for Google with their Chromium open source.

I myself am a web developer and I want to say that web application technologies are developing incredibly rapidly. Now the main problem is probably the language in which they are written - it is incomparable and notorious JavaScript. WebAssembly is now in full swing, which will give a huge increase in speed for web applications.

Documents

I would like to single out this category separately from web applications.

We all often work with some kind of documents. It can be: essays, articles on Habr, customer databases in Excel, or something else, depending on your type of activity. I think this is the most primitive cloud service that you can create, but nevertheless, it is needed and in demand.

The most common web editors:

• MS Office Online
• Google docs

You can open them directly from your cloud and edit them online. I want to note the joint work, because it is very convenient when you work in a team on a project that you personally experienced.

Calculations

If you are a developer or just want to carry out some heavy calculations, then VDS / VPS exists at your service, renting which you can get literally full access to a part of the remote server. For developers, it is worth noting CI / CD, with which you can transfer all deployment tasks to the server, freeing your processor.

Streaming Services

Now everyone uses Youtube, Yandex Music, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. You use them on a daily basis and did not even think that before all this was not there and all the music and videos we had downloaded, and now remember when you last downloaded music or video?

Games

This category also refers to streaming services, but deserves special attention. These services began to develop relatively recently. Google added
fuel to the fire, which recently introduced Google Stadia. Who, if not Google with its data centers? Now it's up to them. Either this service will replenish the Google cemetery, or it will explode and everyone will finally begin to switch to cloud gaming.

Cost

I think the question remains that you are provided with computing resources, which, of course, are not free. Now we buy a computer, we pay a large sum for it once, and in the future we will pay little, but every month, however you pay exactly for what you want to get from it, only what you use.

For example, you have a 200 GB cloud, but this was not enough for you, you paid a little and got an expansion of space on the fly. you don’t need to go anywhere to the store for another SSD, and the ports are not endless, and if you need to add more space, but there are no more slots, you will have to sell / discard the old SSD and buy a new one the size of the past + the necessary additional space, for which everything this was done. With clouds, this problem goes away.

Devices

We will no longer need huge PCs for powerful computers. A small laptop with little processing power and Linux on board is enough. Wait a minute ... It's worth recalling a Chromebook with Chrome OS on board, which is just made for web applications and cloud computing. I think he was ahead of his time, and with the right actions of Google, he can become the main OS on many laptops.

I also want to note that the thickness and weight of these laptops will be absolutely negligible, which opens up new possibilities for using computers.

Could Tim Berners-Lee suggest that his brainchild will change the world forever?