
The end of cloud computing [video] - rmason
http://a16z.com/2016/12/16/the-end-of-cloud-computing/
======
clusmore
So we started with centralized mainframes, because it was too expensive for
everybody to have their own computer. As hardware improves, computers become
cheaper and more powerful and then everybody can have their own, and we move
to a distributed model. Then as internet speeds improve, it becomes practical
to bring all the compute back in to centralized data centres and communicate
with them over the internet from small, less powerful devices. Then as the
hardware improves again, the small devices become powerful enough to perform
their own computation.

In the talk, he says that the reason we need to do the compute "on the edge"
is because the latency between the cloud is insufficient for real-time
devices. So what happens when network speeds improve again (better fibre
infrastructure, LiFi, etc.)? Will we bring the compute back in to centralized
data centres? Will we continue to bounce back and forwards forever, as network
and hardware technology leapfrog each other? Is one model _better_ than the
other?

~~~
jaredklewis
> In the talk, he says that the reason we need to do the compute "on the edge"
> is because the latency between the cloud is insufficient for real-time
> devices. So what happens when network speeds improve again (better fibre
> infrastructure, LiFi, etc.)? Will we bring the compute back in to
> centralized data centres? Will we continue to bounce back and forwards
> forever, as network and hardware technology leapfrog each other? Is one
> model better than the other?

Well, for one thing, a lot of the examples such as self-driving cars, drones,
and any wearable clearly don't allow for use of fiber. Lifi may have some use
cases, but again I don't see how Lifi could help something like a drone or
self-driving car.

But another point is availability. Wireless connections can drop in and out
and our vulnerable to being slowed down by increased demand. Not to mention
that the centralized service itself may fail, due to catastrophic power
failure, DOS attacks, or any number of other reasons.

If that centralized service or choppy wireless connection is providing you
with your todo-list or family photo album, its probably not a big deal to have
occasional outages. If the system is making decisions for self-driving
vehicles, that will be an unmitigated disaster.

Even if it is only enough logic to help an unconnected car pull over to the
side of the road, a self-driving car needs to be able to operate offline, so
one way or another, these cards will need powerful computers inside.

And of course, distributed nodes can also fail. A single car's computer may
fail, and that's not good. But the AI of every car in an entire area failing
simultaneously because power to the local radio tower goes out is going to be
way worse.

The other thing, is that as we have with processing speeds, we will eventually
hit limits in bandwidth. Using bandwidth efficiently will become a larger
priority (as scarcity increases, so will the cost) and the centralized model
clearly has a drawback in terms of bandwidth usage.

So, all in all, I don't think it's just a pendulum that swings back in forth
forever, but that the future will be a hybrid, but heavily distributed world
out of necessity.

~~~
clusmore
I agree that not _all_ computation would move back to centralized data
centres, but then not _all_ computation is done in the cloud now (vs on your
mobile phone). 20 years ago, people would have thought it was insane to send
data packets over the internet to edit a document, or any number of other
tasks now serviced by SaaS products. Of course there are still some tasks that
are better done locally, notably real-time or life-critical tasks. And these
SaaS services only became feasible when the connection reliability and speed
allowed them to.

All I'm suggesting is that future improvements to connection reliability and
speed will give way to another round of SaaS products, perhaps then able to
service real-time needs but still not preferred for life-critical tasks. As
much as I hate to say it, the first example that comes to mind is
surveillance/tracking.

If you think very long-term, like say data-transfer-via-quantum-entanglement,
then you could imagine data transfer being insignificant compared to compute
time for real-time requirements, so you will naturally offload the compute to
the biggest most powerful computer you can get your hands on.

------
bhauer
I can't wait for the traditional centralized cloud to fade out. I've been
anticipating a model I call PAO [1] for several years—personal application
omnipresence. By that I mean applications that run for you personally and are
available on all your devices simultaneously.

We've seen gradual movement away from the traditional cloud with several
models I call "proto-PAO," such as Microsoft's Continuum. And many
applications provide one-off PAO-like experiences by connecting multiple
clients to a central server you administrate. But there is so much more to do.
I am definitely getting excited, though, that the centralized cloud will
likely be replaced in my lifetime.

[1] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao)

~~~
braveo
strangely enough, I've been expecting that as well, but reading your blog
post, I differ on how it will be realized.

I think it's more likely people will instead carry identities that describe
the applications they have access to, and be able to load those on devices for
their identity only, down to the point of being able to walk up to a new PC,
attaching the identity, and then having access to the apps on that new PC.

It'll be a 90% solution that's forced to deal with DRM and safe enough remote
execution, but it'll also allow you to access your documents from anywhere
with a connection.

I know you specifically disagree with the idea of synchronization, but that's
more feasible than what you're suggesting imo. synchronizing a document is
going to be as simple as saving it into the cloud and fetching a delta at the
endpoints.

This will necessarily not work for certain types of applications, no one is
probably going to try and do actual CAD work on the go, although they may view
it. But for most things it'll work well enough.

~~~
ryandamm
Onshape.com - check it out. WebGL is good enough for some CAD users.

~~~
braveo
The issue isn't just one of performance, but form factor and input mechanisms.

------
edblarney
I really don't buy it.

In every case he described current devices (cars, watches) - they are
increasing in 'cpu/storage' \- but they always have been doing this.

Is their something that inherently changes the topology?

Not really.

Cars will be able to id stop signs - which is naturally a local function, just
like 'backup cameras' are a local function today ... but some things like
messaging, gps services, customer data, big data - it's going to be on a
server somewhere.

Why would your car need to talk directly to your blender?

'The cloud' has really more to do with local/small/office servers moving into
consolidated centres with virtualization.

'Logical organization' has not changed: some stuff on 'servers' , some stuff
done 'locally'.

~~~
c22
If your car did need to talk to your blender why wouldn't you want it to do so
directly?

~~~
edblarney
"If your car did need to talk to your blender why wouldn't you want it to do
so directly?"

Sure.

But my car does not need to talk to my blender. :)

------
eranation
Very interesting and while I think the title is a bit "clickbaity" it has some
interesting points. He is not claiming cloud computing is going to disappear,
he is claiming that due to real-time requirements and amount of data,
computing power at the edge will grow, while SaaS and central data analytics
will not stop being centralized in the cloud. He claims the cloud won't handle
the vast amount of sensor data and I'm not sure he is right, but can't prove
him wrong. In any case it seems that cloud providers are already aiming for
this direction. AWS has project greengrass for example:
[https://aws.amazon.com/greengrass/](https://aws.amazon.com/greengrass/)

------
dboreham
Interesting. I still remember Ben pitching me the idea of cloud services in
1999. I thought he was insane at the time. I retain this as the proof that I
can't reliably evaluate a business idea ;)

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YZF
It's an interesting thought experiment but I tend to disagree overall.

I don't think a self driving car is a data-center on wheels. It will not have
100(!) servers built in it. It will have one (or two for redundancy) PCBs with
just the right enough of processing power in whatever form makes sense,
multiple cores, ASICs, etc. (which would be less than 100 server worth).

I would agree that the more compute cycles will move out to the edge. This is
already have been happening with smartphones and will continue with other
intelligent devices. The more computers we have in our environment the more
the overall portion of cycles move to the edge. The depiction of a smartphone
as a dumb terminal isn't that accurate. A smartphone can and does do a lot of
things locally. My bet is there is a lot more compute power in all the phones
today than in AWS EC2. (though maybe not compute $'s)

The comments on machine learning don't make sense. There is a lot more data
for machine learning in the aggregate of all the devices so it will naturally
happen in some centralized location. While there can be some machine learning
in the edge machine learning is a lot more effective on the aggregate
centralized data. So data from the edge will get pulled to central large scale
systems. The result of this learning can be pushed back out to the edge to be
applied (e.g. in the car).

EDIT: He later on modifies his statement about machine learning happening in
the edge and rather some "selection" of the data will be used for machine
learning in the cloud... Still doesn't quite add up.

------
_pdp_
Is cloud dead? No! Will it die? Probably not because not everyone wants to
deal with some of the complexities involved with building the hardware and
networks required to achieve near perfect resilience.

What will certainly going to happen is that we will see more devices online
and many of them will be IOT. ESP8266 can be bought for at little as the cost
of a double espresso. The hobby electronics industry is booming in the face of
Arduino and Raspberry Pi. It is happening.

~~~
eveningcoffee
Has anybody dared to research if EPS8266 contains a backdoor? Its origin and
mass deployment makes me more than nervous.

~~~
_pdp_
We will reach a point eventually where it will take a lot of investment to
deduce if a hardware component contains backdoors. The firmware of the ESP is
opensource through.

------
rmason
While certainly thought provoking I'm not certain that he is exactly correct.
What is going to happen is that there will be a lot of devices where a peer to
peer model makes more sense. It doesn't mean that cloud computing is going to
go away but it will instead change over time.

I am more in agreement with the idea that data analysts jobs will grow. Also
think that a lot of apps will have their own databases but instead of ignoring
the cloud they will need to occasionally sync with the cloud as opposed to
real time access.

I think that RESTful data services will become more of a commodity and that
most developers will need a data service, an authentication service, a telecom
service and a payment service (and perhaps a few more) to construct a program.

We're not too far off from it happening and the opportunity exists for an
ambitious company to offer a Microsoft Office style suite of services to
developers. I'd personally prefer it be Stripe or Twilio as opposed to
Microsoft or Google that ends up doing it.

------
miguelrochefort
The solution is obvious. Cache not only data, but functions as well.

I should be able to download entire systems on local devices (a cache hub, a
router, a personal cache hotspot, a smartphone), and have them work offline if
necessary.

However, this will require a new computing paradigm altogether, powered by a
new language. This kind of seamless caching demands a language with superior
semantics (API auto-discoversbility) and logic-programming influence. I
imagine some kind of predicate store should do the job.

~~~
IanCal
Do we really need a new language for this? We already have things that run on
both server and client, javascript being the obvious one, where there's
already a blending of computation for webpage rendering happening (pre-
rendered on the server then the code for updating sent to the client).

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dkarapetyan
The edge is limited by power constraints. Only so much computation you can do
before your phone melts.

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dmourati
Made me think of the difference between the Central Nervous System (CNS) vs
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_nervous_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_nervous_system)

~~~
redwood
so will the internet be more like a mammal or an octopus? :)

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zpallin
"Edge intelligence" is not going to happen in place of the cloud, simply in
addition to it. When storage gets smaller in form factor, maybe we will be
storing 100s of TBs in a car, but there will still be a data center storing
100s of PBs.

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tomc1985
Man I'm not even old and history is already repeating itself.

Whatever. Down with the cloud!

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joelbondurant
Thank Spaghetti, AWS is making people stupid.

