Client, Server and Cloud

Main-frames used to do it all. Then the PC, which is the standard access point for IT, took over. Then we needed to collaborate and back-up. Servers became necessary. Now, many applications run on the server and relatively few remain on the PC. Some services are leaving local servers and residing in the cloud. Are we "there" yet?

The evolution of IT seems to me to have a single goal, the lowest cost/benefit of computing per-seat. When main-frames costing millions were standard, PCs costing thousands were attractive. Now, PCs costing less than $1000 are being phased out by thin clients that cost only a few hundred per seat. Huge RAM, storage and inexpensive multi-core CPUs are natural for servers. They do not belong on our desks because noise heat and maintenance interfere with our productivity. It seems to me that eventually a client will be a thin client with a full-size keyboard and monitor costing $200 or less. Services that run more economically on the cloud will do so.

If most of our computing will be done on servers, the OS on the client is almost irrelevant. Any protocol that brings images to the monitor and sends clicks to the server will do. This gives more choices which take time and effort but the rewards are many: easier management, centralized back-up, fewer physical points of attack for data theft and intrusion and higher performance. The server can out-perform the usual thick client because of heavy-duty CPU, RAM, RAID, and networking.

According to Gartner the future is happening now with major shifts in the next few years.

Movement from the local server to the cloud will evolve. There is a lot of e-mail and collaboration done now on the cloud. I expect more of that will happen. Any application that can be done more economically on the cloud will move there. Any application that requires faster response time or greater security than the cloud can deliver will stay on local servers. Eventually everything except that involving intense I/O or computing that fits comfortably on a local server will go to the cloud. It is just more economical to have specialists for almost everything because they are more productive. Most of us cannot afford to hire that in-house expertise or build-out the local data-centre indefinitely because most of us are SMB or individuals.