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About the Cloud

Entry 2231, on 2022-08-14 at 15:47:35 (Rating 1, Computers)

After receiving some positive feedback for my post about hydrogen as a fuel source, I thought I might try another more informative (and less ranty) article about another subject people find confising: the "cloud".

No doubt many people who use computers (which would include all of my readers, presumably) have heard about the cloud, or cloud services, or software in the cloud, or something similar. But what actually is the cloud?

Well, it's a bit disappointing really, because all "the cloud" really means in this context is another computer attached to the internet somewhere. More specifically, the computer should be part of a large collection of computers in numerous locations around the world, and you would neither know nor care which computer (or more likely multiple computers) in particular your data is stored on.

The most common form of cloud storage is probably email, although this pre-dates the popularity of the word. Your email is stored on computers belonging to your local service provider (Spark, Vodafone, Orcon, etc in New Zealand) or on servers belonging to the company providing your email (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc) which might be different from the company providing your actual internet connectivity.

I will pause here and provide some practical advice: under no circumstances do I recommend using your internet provider for your email. For example, if your email address includes the name of an ISP (internet service provider) like Xtra or Vodafone or Orcon then consider changing to Google, Outlook (Microsoft), Apple, etc.

Why? Well, for three main reasons. First, most service providers see email as a secondary function, and they tend to do it badly, so you almost certainly get a poor service in terms of storage, speed, and reliability. Second, if you want to change to a new internet service provider you might be trapped if you use your current provider's email system. Third, most email programs (Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird) can automatically configure themselves for the biggest email systems (GMail, for example) but you will probably need to provide a whole pile of technical details to configure some of the lesser used systems, like those provided by ISPs.

So, getting back to the cloud, the email is sent from one computer, passed from one email server to another until it reaches your email provider's main servers (usually using a protocol called SMTP - simple mail transfer protocol), then your computer collects it from the server using another protocol; usually IMAP (internet mail access protocol).

There are two geeky words above I should explain. First, "server". A server is just a computer which performs a service automatically. It is usually a "box" in a server room with no screen, keyboard, or mouse. It just waits for a signal from other computers and responds with the required information.

The second word is "protocol". You often see computer acronyms end with the letter "P", for example TCP, IP, IMAP, SMTP, FTP, HTTP, and many more. The P here almost always means protocol. A protocol is just a set of specific rules the computer knows how to interpret and execute. For example IMAP (internet mail access protocols) includes rules for listing new messages, sending them to the user's computer, marking them as read, deleting them, etc.

So email is a classic cloud service, and if you access your email through a web browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc) rather than an email program (Mail, Outlook, etc) then you are also using a second type of cloud service: SaaS (software as a service). In this case, most or all of the program you are using to access your email is also in the cloud. The browser just provides a place the email access software, provided by the email provider, can display its results (in this case, email messages).

The most common use of the cloud though, is for file storage. This allows computer users to store their files on a cloud service, instead of their own computer. But, remember that a cloud service is just another computer (or many computers), so what's the point?

Well, there are several. First, most computers nowadays use solid state drives (SSDs) to store files. SSDs are great: they are fast, quiet, reliable, and efficient, but they are more expensive for the same capacity as the older hard disk technology, so modern computers often have less storage than older ones did (is this progress?)

So it is more common now to not have enough space to store everything you might need locally (that is, on your computer's storage device), especially since as well as computers having less storage than in the past, files tend to be bigger. So why not store files in the cloud and just copy them to your computer when you need them? Most services just leave a "placeholder" icon on your desktop, and the user opening it automatically loads the file from the cloud - as long as you have an internet connection.

Second, many people now have multiple computers, and other devices such as smartphones and tablets, and they might want to be able to access their files on them all. For example, I can access all of my computer's files from my iPhone and iPad, as well as from a web browser from any internet-connected computer (with the appropriate password, of course).

I use Apple's "iCloud" service for this, which works really well. I just create a file on my computer, iCloud copies it to the cloud, and when I access the same location (folder) from my phone the file is already there. If I modify it on the phone, iCloud "pushes" the changed file from the phone up the the cloud, then "pulls" it back down to the computer again.

Note that every file I have is stored locally, and the cloud is primarily used to synchronise files across multiple devices in this case. If I have no internet connection, or in the unlikely event there is a problem with the cloud service, I am still fully functional, although I chose to not fully store the files on the iPad or iPhone, so those would not necessarily have access to everything in that case.

Third, cloud services allow collaboration. My wife and I both access the same shopping list through Apple's "Notes" application. So the same list is on her computer and phone, and on my computer, phone, and iPad. If I add a new item, she sees it. We can even both add items to the list at the same time. Similarly, word processing documents, spreadsheets, etc can also be edited by many users simultaneously in the same way.

Finally, the cloud provides a useful backup for your files. If you store your data in the cloud, then your computer is stolen, or is lost, or fails, just get a new computer (or tablet, etc) and connect to the same cloud service. All your data will "magically" re-appear!

So what are the disadvantages of the cloud? Well, there are a few...

First, if you store your files in a cloud service (and don't also keep them locally), then lose the internet connection, you cannot get to your data. Most people work in an office, or at home, wehre they have access to wifi, so it isn't an issue, but if they fly somehere, on an aircraft without internet (a significant number of them) then they have no access to their files.

Most services allow you to download specific files when you have a connection, and then make changes locally and allow it to update once the internet access is restored. Note that using my strategy of having everything local and just using the cloud for synchronisation avoids this issue.

Second, cloud services are not generally free. With iCloud I could get 5G of storage for free, but now pay about $4 per month for 200G. I don't store big files like music and movies there, so 200G is adequate. Other services work in a similar way, and some (such as Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud) bundle cloud storage with the cost of the programs, but I don't like that approach.

Third, what if something goes wrong? If someone hacks your account and deletes the files in cloud storage, then the copies on your computer will also be deleted, so that they stay synchronised. Also, if there is a fault, and your files all disappear for no apparent reason, then most cloud service providers won't be too helpful in getting them back.

I had one client whose Microsoft OneDrive files all disappeared one day, and she never got them back. Microsoft were utterly useless (no surprises there). Every single file she ever had was gone! Luckily this happend a week before she retired, so it wasn't a total disaster.

Despite the fact I listed backup as a benefit of cloud services, I prefer to run my own backups as well, onto local external disks. Use the cloud as your only backup at your peril. To be fair, this data loss is extremely rare, but it can happen.

Fourth, it just makes your IT setup more complicated. There is extra software (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive) running on your computer, using up its battery, requiring updating, and occasionally needing problems fixed. Everything has a negative side to it.

Anyway, that's an introduction to the cloud for the average user. Note that the pros and cons for corporate users might be quite different, so don't think I have forgotten those aspects; I just ignored them!

Comment 1 (7265) by Anonymous on 2022-08-16 at 10:49:15:

Fifth, maintaining the cloud requires vast amounts of energy. The more digital cruft people accumulate without editing or purging, the more energy is required to maintain it. Users are often told there are no downsides to keeping everything... The energy required to maintain he cloud is not insignificant. (https://science.time.com/2013/08/14/power-drain-the-digital-cloud-is-using-more-energy-than-you-think/)

Comment 2 (7266) by OJB on 2022-08-16 at 12:00:13:

Yes, that is a factor, and the article you included is from 2013, so I suspect it could be worse now. Or maybe it's better, since computers are more efficient, although I doubt it. The question is this: is the energy used to store data in central facilities more or less than what would be used if the user created their own storage systems (external drives, NAS, servers). Maybe the "economy of scale" offers an advantage? The alternative to cloud storage isn't no storage.

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