Sounds wild, if it works as advertised..

Mainframe2 claims it can put almost any Windows application into the cloud, making apps usable from any device that can run a web browser supporting html5. We’re talking PhotoShop and AutoCAD on your iPad. This is a big deal.

Normally moving an app from a PC to a server and then virtualizing it in the cloud is a multistep process that can take weeks or months to get running smoothly but Nikola says Mainframe2 can do the job in about 10 minutes. The application code runs across many virtual machines in the cloud and — this is especially important — supports nVIDIA’s virtual GPU standard, so graphics performance is especially strong. And that’s the point, because it’s graphically-intensive apps like video editing that Mainframe2 will be targeting from the start when its service becomes commercially available later this fall.

http://www.cringely.com/2013/10/15/mainframe2-runs-super-powerful-windows-apps-cloud/

"We’re talking PhotoShop and AutoCAD on your iPad. This is a big deal."

Perhaps, for some consumer  apps but for hi end CG modeling , animation& Visual effects Effects /post production suites,

touch screen devices (IOS& Android)

leave much to be desired to put it mildly.

Adobe however is pushing hard for 

Having their Desktop apps become cloud based only as a "final Solution"

to Piracy.

This ,of course will be limited by the availability of broadband Access.

Cheers

The old punch-card IT boys have been dreaming of the Cloud since 1981, and now their dreams have come true.  All programs and data are back in the mainframe where they belong, and personal devices are just TTYs again.

No thanks.  I like a personal computer with personally owned and personally stored data and programs.

Quote - "We’re talking PhotoShop and AutoCAD on your iPad. This is a big deal."

 

Perhaps, for some consumer  apps but for hi end CG modeling , animation& Visual effects Effects /post production suites,

touch screen devices (IOS& Android)

leave much to be desired to put it mildly.

 

Bluetooth mouse and keyboard solves that.  Also, a Chromebook doesn't have that limitation.

My Windows desktop is limited to 6 cores.  It would be nice to have the ability to  increase that for a special project without having to purchase new hardware....

Given what happened with Adobe's 'cloud' recently, i'm sure people will be rushing to trust even more of their data to this sort of thing... not.

Seriously though, personally i'm all for rentable, adaptable computing resources. Right now, we buy computing power in a sort of 'worse case' approach which is a criminal waste of money IMO. Being able to dial up only as much power as you need is a neat and elegant idea. But it's very half baked right now and a lot more work is needed in the infrastructure before it becomes a viable alternative.

For rendering and the like it's nothing new. Render farms have resided in the cloud for several years already.

For 3D modeling? I'm pretty sure the responsiveness of a 3D modeling app over an Internet connection isn't up to snuff. Bandwidth won't be a real problem, but round trip times are too long for real responsiveness.

And I like to do my modeling work on a decent sized screen. AutoCAD on a tablet? No way!

**"Bluetooth mouse and keyboard solves that." **

No....Not for high end CG & graphics production

IMO No sane Visual Effects Company with the $$$Contract$$$ to do the CG/VFX for a Major motion picture would trust some "remote application service" with critical rendered Final frames of CG/VFX shots with their critical Final shot delivery dates pending.

One hour two internet outage could literally cost millions when suddenly 1200 frames of layered EXR's in need of compositing, are stuck "in the Cloud" while your ISP fiddles about.

Not to mention the fact that most CG companies don't actually use  "off the shelf"software mentioned so proudly in the linked article.

Butindeed have in house programmers to write on the spot extensions of the the capabilities of high end suites Like MAYA,Houdini etc through their various scripting abilities.

They also employ massive team collaborations via "File referencing" that enables multiple artists to simultaneously work on the same scene and have their changes update the master scene via their own(usually linux based) CLOSED Local networks

I am not saying this idea/service is a non starter

but it would NOT be a solution for many Industries where RAW Computing power is not the only consideration in production   

Cheers

I have a strong opinion for this wet cloud dream of some.

A Cloud is for data.
Not for applications.

Raining on someone's parade?

Quote - The old punch-card IT boys have been dreaming of the Cloud since 1981, and now their dreams have come true.  All programs and data are back in the mainframe where they belong, and personal devices are just TTYs again.

No thanks.  I like a personal computer with personally owned and personally stored data and programs.

what ockham said ;)

Laurie

It's funny how frantic so many companies are to get as much of our stuff/work on 'the cloud' as they can.  In my company we will never trust any of our work to 'the cloud'.  It would be foolish for us for many reasons.  We'll see what develops but I don't even like the idea of trusting trivial hobbyist stuff to any third party company.  Hard drive space is dirt cheap.  Who needs the cloud?

Quote - > Quote - The old punch-card IT boys have been dreaming of the Cloud since 1981, and now their dreams have come true.  All programs and data are back in the mainframe where they belong, and personal devices are just TTYs again.

No thanks.  I like a personal computer with personally owned and personally stored data and programs.

what ockham said ;)

Laurie

Same here.

oh and deja vu :)

Quote - Who needs the cloud?

No one.

It is a solution in search of a problem.

No, thanks, no cloud for me. No one needs it at all, the only ones who benefit from it are software companies like Adobe. Now they can charge you a hefty price tag each year or let you pay each month for using their software. Once the year is over..... to bad for you unless you keep on paying you can't use the software anymore. I'll stick to a good old unclouded computer, I'm old fashioned..... if I pay for something I want to own it, use whenever, wherever and however long I want to.

Last week 1 of my customers needed Access. Normally you'd nip to the shop, buy a disc, install and use. Not anymore, instead the push is on making people pay a subscription for 365. Took 3 shops before someone sold us a cardboard box containing another smaller bit of cardboard. Smaller bit of cardboard allows us to download access, but only after having to give out a whole load of personal data. Took roughly an hour to register and download, even on fast cable. It loads up with nice big buttons as we're obviously all idiots now and need simple app like screens. And can it do the job that every version before this can do ? Nope, what you require is a previous version, but of course you can't buy that! Yet we're told this is a better way of doing things. Sure that might be true for the profit margins and try to make customers conform, but not for the people who use this stuff. Instead what happens is we just turn to older disc based versions or open source.

I don't need AutoDesk CAD ,I need AutoDesk MAX,Maya,MudBox.

I looked at Adobie ,but they wanted a one year contract ,
but I took it they could rase my monthly bill.
So I sign today for $50.00 a month then in 3 or 4 months from now they could go it's 75.00 a month now .
is that right ?

What about plugs ? like filter forge ?

Can we save are stuff on the cloud and our own PC also ?

Half to say Blender & Gimp are real good for there Price ;)

I have a old version of C4D 9 32 bit .& I have Blender 64 bit

Blender can do a lot that the old version of C4D can not do.

The nVIDIA’s virtual GPU standard looks interesting, could be the first step to having a standard wireless protocol between displays and other devices. Quite like the idea of being able to switch main display/keyboard to other devices without interrupting a render.

The cloud has its place. A small company can outsource their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud, which CAN be cost effective, especially for standard office applications such as word processors, spreadsheets and email. There's a good reason that Google Docs is quite popular.

But I don't think the cloud is suitable for GPU intensive work in genneral.

One interesting application I've seen is using this tech for a private cloud (using cloud tech within the company itself). Branch offices connect to the main office datacenter to do their work. That can be cost effective, since the branch offices then don't need their own datacenters.

"it is a solution in search of a problem."

Actually it is a problem in search of innocent victims
in my view.

Understand, I am not Completely Opposed to "remote storage" of Data as a backup option .

Technically DAZ & others have been Keeping copies of All of our purchased Content in their "Clouds" years before the term  "Cloud" took on this new linguistic meaning in the modern tech vernacular.

The Economically Discriminatory requirement for constant broadband access aside,

However the cynic in me tends to views this urgent push ,by some, for Keeping even the means of production in the cloud, (ie content creation apps) ,as an attempt to usurp my personal creative freedom in choosing how&when to use my creative Tools

leaving it up to the whims of some corporate monolith.

Also in light of recent revelations about the Collusion between
ISP companies and Intelligence Agencies.

How long before they could start monitoring what creative people are producing with cloud based 3D/CG programs in the name of 

"homeland Security"

Imagine the day when innocent creative producers are in danger of being hauled away by the FBI because some so called  "analyst" ,monitoring your cloud based version of Autocad, believed you were modeling parts for a bomb to be 3D printed.

Cheers

Imagine the day when innocent creative producers ... Well thats kinda already happened here in the UK. A few years ago the UK PTB's ran Operation Ore, well documented on the Guardian and BBC news sites. Basically using credit card data supplied by the FBI and US cops, British police raided those suspected of dealing in the worst kind of digital imagery. As they should do, no question there. Problem was some of the card data was from stolen cards. Which lead to a lot of innocent people being arrested, losing jobs, homes, relationships, even suicides. While thats often used as a model of don't assume anything when training cops, imagine if you're a cop. You've boshed the door in with your big red key, the adrenaline is firing and you find some typical poser artwork on someones PC's. The everyday "barely legal teen" stuff as beloved in the gallery's, nothing horrific. It's already illegal here to view or make digital versions of the stuff you'd see at sites like 'rotica. So would you think thats an innocent digital artist or something worse?

Well if they crash my door down ,there find a lot of 1/2 finished meshes from everthing to cars,buildings,castles,demonds,monsters,characters etc etc.
The inquisitions would burn me at the stake, but doubt the cops care.

Attached Link: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=csl_ec2_lnch_mp?searchTerms=otoy

Otoy have released a GPU/Octane cloud rendering service at Amazon.  So highend graphics workstation plus 3ds max, maya, revit, etc all via your browser.

Paul

Cloud computing is NOT for me. I want my software and data on my own little hard drive where whether it lives or dies is up to my negligence, not someone else's (I can handle that) ;). What I can't handle is some bigwig in some office somewhere that arbitrarily decides he/she can use something I've made any way they like in the name of merchandising/advertising because it resides on their servers. No thanks.

I have nothing expensive on my machine anyway. I tend to use free or cheap software, and the big guns? I wouldn't know how to use them if I had them and obviously I've found other software that gets the job done...lol. I don't NEED any cloud computing services (other than maybe backup) and I like it that way.

I don't want to do what we do on a tablet either. The desktop is maddening enough...lol.

Laurie