SQL Server In The Cloud Vaporware Or Inevitable?

"The ability to upload a file and specify the target object to load the data into has to be implemented. We get files via ftp all the time, nobody wants to parse the files locally and insert row by row."

Denis,

I wouldn't worry too much about this - I'm sure there'll be tools available. In some cases there already is - you can already download a free SSIS destination adapter for SDS - i.e. A component that uploads the contents of a SSIS dataflow into SDS.

-Jamie

The medical center I work for is private, and you don't even have to limit statement about the acronym soup requirements to public companies. There is simply no way health care organizations are going to trust their data and their ability to provide their services to a third party they don't control. The risk of impacting patient safety and the loss of money and goodwill is far greater than any benefit the cloud may offer. I can see companies creating their own clouds, especially if it improves uptime or offers better disaster recovery solutions, but that's the only way I can see clouds being more than Microsoft's current "golly, look at what our research dept cooked up this week!"

I think Morris' comment is dead on - the biggest issue with a the Cloud concept when it comes to information (not processing) is one of trust. A "cloud" implies something unknown or undefinable happening. That's why you have a network diagram that ultimately leads to a "cloud" icon if you're hitting an external network system (which isn't necessarily the Internet).

I know of many private companies that have 200MB databases that would never trust an outside agency to host it without being able to ultimately "point" to that data ("it's on server x at our location B that also has data for 1000 other customers).

Cloud computing I think is an inevitability - cloud data an oxymoron. Data I believe must reside on a discrete island, with a discrete "owner".

Well my guess is that cloud computing will take flight soon, think MS Azure and SSDS, it will make hosting .NET websites in the cloud with data from webservices rather simple (as far as i can see)

This makes this cloud more interesting to me.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/23/sql_server_azure/

Perhaps its time to re-read William Gibson's <i>Neuromancer</i>.  It's not that much of a step from the Internet to Clouds to full blown Cyberspace.  What is pretty much a given in terms of tech advances is this:

If you can see it on the horizon, and it looks like a 'slam dunk', its gonna take a LONG time.  Anybody got their flying car yet?  It's the things that come out of nowhere that move fast.

"scattered clouds" is the way of the near (5-20 yr) future.  Physical security issues, bandwidth, and legal are the primary challenges.  Outside of the theoretical sciences, too much of the data that intensive crunching applications use is subject to privacy concerns, whether legal (i.e. medical data), or proprietary (does Company X really want its engineering prototype info in the cloud?).  High volume low criticality stuff will make it to the cloud first, which means entertainment.  Porn clouds, music clouds, etc.  The problem with these is the bandwidth issues.