Cloud Hosting

[rrepic]

Hey All

Anyone thought about or tried hosting HS2 on Amazon's EC2 service?? If so, would you mind sharing your experiences? If not, who wants to work on a project to see how this may work?? Given we will not be in violation of any software licensing concerns from HS.....

Thoughts??

[donstephens]

Just out of curiosity, what would be the advantage of this?

[rrepic]

Well I admit its more technically interesting than anything...
- Ability to run without need for local PC/server
- Ability to control multiple residences without need for VPN tunnels
- Would require all communications to be TCP/IP
- Ability to have a higher level of availability vs local PC

A couple years ago, Siemens decided to move their very large PBX software off dedicated hardware and run it inside Amazon EC2. One idea was to get out of the hardware business and worrying about upgrades, patching, drivers, etc, etc. Not sure if they ever completed it and transformed it to a marketable product but sounded interesting...

Was thinking about recent market offerings from Xfinity and Alarm.com where they are moving into some portion of the residential automation business "as a service".....

I'd be interested in other's thoughts as well.....

[electron]

You would still need a secure connection (VPN/SSH/...) in order to interface any IP hardware you have residing at the house. If you do any audio (TTS, etc.), you'll run into trouble as well.

That said, automation is one of those things that should stay local, for performance, security and convenience reasons.

[rrepic]

You would still need a secure connection (VPN/SSH/...) in order to interface any IP hardware you have residing at the house. If you do any audio (TTS, etc.), you'll run into trouble as well.

That said, automation is one of those things that should stay local, for performance, security and convenience reasons.

Well I'm not planning to move my solution to cloud only anytime soon. However, the market is starting to change:

http://www.cepro.com/article/xfinity...d_thermostats/

Besides I thoroughly enjoy the DIY aspect and ability to customize as I see fit for my own individual needs.

[electron]

Those are just internet-enabled thermostats (I despise the 'cloud' word), which isn't anything new. What you are talking about is moving the entire machine to an internet based host tho, while the Comcast/Verizon services rely on a small appliance/gateway on your network which interfaces with a proprietary server on their end.

[Steve Q]

I don't see a "cloud" version of Homeseer in my future! I do think however there could be some cloud based services that could interact with Homeseer. Things like plugins, updates, data backups, and other specialized services could be cloud based and hosted by Homeseer. Maybe Homeseer could change their business model and offer a complete Home automation service for $9.99 per month. This seems pretty "cloudy" to me.

Steve Q

[travisdh]

I can also see the benefit in having something like a cloud enabled plugin. Imagine the idea of having homeseer mass adopted, so hotels and other places have something like this running, it remembers your settings 'through the cloud' and with plugins like HSTV, phone settings etc it can divert your calls to your hotel room, and tell you when your favorite show is about to start based on the local TV channels at the hotel.

I think that sort of stuff would be great being cloud enabled, however i think the hardware for systems including lighting control, TTS and so on would be better enabled on local control. Imaging having lighting control not working because the internet connection dropped out

[danielbo]

Running on Cloud.

I don't understand this cloud stuff. The way I figure it, is that its really just using a business, or even you own back up drive. A drive to copy mp3, pictures and documents.
You can give your cloud a drive letter. So if you can do that can you install programs on a cloud?
I have never tried it, when install a program, direct the install l to cloud drive. Will that work? That would be so cool if you could. Don't know and just wondering.

[pbibm]

Its fair to say that "the cloud" bumper-sticker is stuck to a lot of things and the industry needs to sort it out. Its a frame work, and more useful when a provider provides you a full software service solution, not just a server.

A place where it would eventually make sense is where "HA Software Company X" could offer parts of their software as a cloud service. You would log in to a service that's "out there" on the internet. They would manage the software, updates, back ups, etc. You would log in to configure, setup, read logs etc. This does not exist yet, that I know of.

As a standalone concept for HA, just moving your server to the cloud doesn't provide a lot of value, and as pointed out, performance of realtime services like media, responsiveness would suffer today due to network latency.

Having said that, denying cloud forever will be like holding up your arms and asking the tide not to come in. Networks are getting faster. Eventually services that make sense and integrate local UPNP services will come.

As an example of something cloud that works, I have been using Webroots cloud backup and antivirus solution for a few years and I love it. My kids pcs at college, my fileserver, even homeseer are all backup real time, immediately.

[danielbo]

Thanks going to check this webroots out. Sounds like a good idea and helpful.