MS Live Mesh - Remote Desktop Meets the Cloud

You might not think of remote desktop as a cloud tool but MS has added cloud storage to remote desktop and called it Live Mesh. I have been using it recently and it is pretty nice. I use VNC fairly extensively and, when I'm not using VNC, I tend to use SSH. Well, I heard about this Live Mesh thing and decided to download it and give it a try. It is currently a beta product but I haven't had any issues.

My first thought on using it was that it was a clone of gotomypc. I'm not a user of gotomypc so I can't say for sure but it looks that way. The big difference is that gotomypc doesn't have a free version or online storage. I think the integration, storage and synchronization services are what make Mesh a unique tool.

Being an MS product, you might expect there is no Linux support. You would be right. There is MAC OS/X support though and Windows Mobile is on the way. I would be a lot more excited if they planned to support blackberry. But, it is still a great way to stay in touch with my desktop, laptop, work computer and the non-linux database servers in my lab.

This is what my home desktop looks like from the Live Mesh Desktop:

You can access a live mesh remote desktop from any computer that can run IE. The computer you are connecting FROM does not need to be running Live Mesh at all. Just log into your account at livemesh.com and login. You can then connect to any device in your mesh.

When you log in via a browser, you get a device screen where you see all of your devices and can connect to new ones. Your device names are not the actual hardware identification. You get to give them friendly text names.

If you open your live desktop, you can create folders to store data in the cloud. You currently get 5GB of storage for free,. You can create multiple directories and automatically sync those directories to the devices of your choosing. As an example, I created a Documents directory. Anything I put in that directory is automatically propagated to my work computer, my laptop (BIGDOG) and to one of my database servers (which has partially become my son's computer).

This is my Live Desktop:

I haven't really noticed any speed differences between the IE connection and the Remote Desktop tool. I prefer to use the remote desktop but I can't really say why. Here is what my db server looks like, first in IE and then in the remote desktop tool:

IE:

Remote Desktop:

If you notice in some of the above shots, Mesh windows have a side window with tips and information. I snipped that window out of some of these shots. It's kind of annoying but usually provides helpful information. I could see in the future, if this becomes a pay service, that ads might be placed there to support a free version.

This is the text of the help window when connected to a remote desktop:

So that's pretty much live mesh. It offers synching and free storage (more than mozy even) as well as a remote desktop that is accessible from a browser. I think this just shows how much cloud computing will be integrated in everyone's life and not just in business.

LewisC

Technorati : desktop, live, mesh, microsoft, remote, storage

AT&T Plays in the Cloud

I have said quite a few times that Cloud Computing is more like a phone company than it is like electricity. A phone company can offer various services and will change from provider to provider. Electricity needs to be the same for everyone (at least within a region).

Today, AT&T announced the move to the cloud: AT&T Launches Global Utility Computing Service. According to this article from GridToday, AT&T announced it's new AT&T Synaptic Hosting, a managed network, security and storage business for businesses. They are build 5 "super data centers" to have a total of 38 data centers, world-wide.

A core feature of AT&T Synaptic Hosting is its next-generation utility computing platform. This enables the service to deliver a complete hosting solution with features that use the AT&T network to manage applications, compute resources on servers and store data. AT&T Synaptic Hosting also provides designated account support all backed by a single end-to-end, service-level agreement that is unique within the industry.

This looks like the beginning of something. Maybe telephony will morph to VOIP and the big bells will, with their tremendous computing power and dedicated networking, become the home of the cloud. Just because Amazon and Google started it, doesn't mean they will do it best or last the longest. This is the kind of thing the major communications companies need.

"Today's announcement is yet another example of AT&T's commitment to deliver next-generation services and solutions to companies worldwide," said Ron Spears, group president, AT&T Global Business Services. "The AT&T global network, combined with our powerful computing platform, is driving the convergence of networking and hosting services in ways that are allowing companies to deliver end-user applications whenever and wherever they are needed - while paying only for the capacity actually used.

The official Web site of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) is powered by AT&T Synaptic Hosting. Teamusa.org is the USOC's new feature-rich Web site that connects fans of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams with America's athletes on their journey to the Olympic Games. The site features stories on U.S. Olympians and Paralympians and Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, athlete blogs and social networking tools.

And they wouldn't be the phone company if they didn't offer a menu of options and add-ons.

In addition to utility computing features, AT&T Synaptic Hosting offers the following:

• A broad selection of dynamic storage and security features that enterprises have come to rely on to protect their data and assets.
• The ability to use AT&T's BusinessDirect customer portal to easily manage capacity, complete maintenance and monitor network service and performance of their virtual IT environment.
• Personalized support from teams of designated hosting and application specialists who are experienced in the business and technical needs of the clients.
• Application monitoring and reporting capabilities that work with most client software available in the industry today.
• One end-to-end service level agreement that covers the customer's entire environment.

You can bet there will be more to come from AT&T.

LewisC

Technorati : att, cloud, computing, utility

The Computers of Tomorrow

Is Cloud Computing a new idea? As a matter of a fact, it is not. Is comparing cloud computing to the electric utilities a new concept. As a matter of a fact, it is not. What does this sound like:

ANALOGY WITH ELECTRICITY

The computing machine is fundamentally an extremely useful device. The service it provides has a kind of universality and generality not unlike that afforded by electric power. Electricity can be harnessed for any of a wide variety of jobs: running machinery, exercising control, transmitting information, producing sound, heat, and light. Symbolic computation can be applied to an equally broad range of tasks: routine numerical calculations, manipulation of textual data, automatic control of instrumentation, simulation of dynamic processes, statistical analyses, problem solving, game playing, information storage, retrieval, and display.

Does that sounds like Nick Carr's analogy with electricity? "Symbolic computation" - When's the last time you heard it said like that?

How about:

THE INFORMATION UTILITY

The concept of an information-processing utility poses many questions. Will the role of information utilities be sufficiently extensive and cohesive to create a whole new industry? If so, will this industry consist of a single integrated utility, like American Telephone and Telegraph, or will there be numerous individual utilities, like Consolidated Edison and the Boston Gas Company? Will the design and manufacture of computing components, terminal equipment, and programming systems be accomplished by subsidiaries of the information utility, as in the telephone industry, or will there be a separate industry of independent private manufacturers, like General Electric and Westinghouse in today's electrical equipment industry?

This sounds an awful lot like utility computing. Something just isn't right though. An information processing utility? American Telephone and Telegraph? Is that AT&T? GE and Westinghouse?

Perhaps the most important question of all concerns the legal matter of government regulation. Will the information utility be a public utility, or will it be privately owned and operated? Will some large companies have their own information utilities, just as some companies today have their own generating plants?

That also sounds like the cloud computing that has been growing at Amazon and Google. Those are sort of like the questions people are asking. Who will own the cloud and how homogeneous will it be. And re-read that last sentence.

The high cost of capital equipment is a major reason why producers of electricity are public utilities instead of unregulated companies. A second reason is the extensive distribution network they require to make their product generally available. This network, once established, is geographically fixed and immovable. Wasteful duplication and proliferation of lines could easily result if there were no public regulation.

This above paragraph is so true. Check out the following paragraph:

Barring unforeseen obstacles, an on-line interactive computer service, provided commercially by an information utility, may be as commonplace by 2000 AD as telephone service is today. By 2000 AD man should have a much better comprehension of himself and his system, not because he will be innately any smarter than he is today, but because he will have learned to use imaginatively the most powerful amplifier of intelligence yet devised.

Did you read that? "by 2000 AD". The article I have been quoting from was written for the Atlantic Monthly in May 1964. This article was written two years before I was born.

This article just blows my mind. The companies are different, the primary industries have changed. The vision is amazing to me. Talk about an accurate extrapolation of the computer industry.

There are a couple of items here that I love.

Dr. Bush himself was only extrapolating from the technology of the time in these particular predictions.

That's the author of this article, Martin Greenberger, complimenting an earlier author on his foresight. Congratulations to you Mr Greenberger. You hit it dead on.

nor did he bank on the perfection of electronic logic, magnetic cores, and transistors.

heh. That one makes me smile. "the perfection of electronic logic, magnetic cores, and transistors", oh if only he know how "more perfect" it could get.

And finally, to set it in perspective. When this was written,

Tens of thousands of computers have been perfected and successfully applied in the past two decades

"Tens of thousands". How many is that now? 10s of billions? This article is 44 years old. I am just amazed.

LewisC

Technorati : analogy, cloud computing, next big thing, utility computing