Differences between Alibre and other CAD, Fusion etc?
- Thread starter JST
- Start date
Mibe
Alibre Super User
JST said:
So you can run it from any client you wish, a tablet or a Commodore 64 (with some serious tweaking)
The point is that a cloud solutions, where the calculations are made in the cloud, could give extreme power. Microsoft already have this backbone up and running. Imagine doing a huge pattern with complex geometry in 0.1 seconds.
JST
Alibre Super User
With the computing remote, the idea of "local" files is ridiculous in the present model for the system.
THE ENTIRE FILE has to be transmitted to the remote host, and KEPT there during the session. So the result is that your information IS in fact "in the cloud" regardless of any "convenient fiction" that the files are local. Obviously they have to go to the "cloud" to be worked on, at which point you have lost control of them, you have no idea if they are stored, or not stored, somewhere in the cloud. And you do not know what happened in between.
Transmitting all that information back and forth will not be fast, either, even if the computations themselves are fast. So the "refresh time" will suffer.
One more secure way of doing it is to offload just the heavy calculations, and not the entire file handling. That way it is at least possible that the information transmitted would be difficult to associate with any specific design.... it would never be sent in its entirety. I suspect that the design could still be recreated from that information, but it would be far more difficult, and could be assumed to be "commercially secure".
When the entire design must be transmitted, and cloud stored for the duration of work, access to it by unauthorized folks is as easy as picking up money from the ground. You cannot guarantee others do not have access, because you simply do not know.
An attempt to encrypt it in transmission would only extend the time taken....
It is so simple to just do it locally...... I have no need to do my work on a Commodore 64, never owned one, never will.
I am amused. I have seen computer go from a single central item, to a central unit with terminals for many users, to a computer for each, to computers in a network, networked with central storage, and now back toward a central unit with terminals. I expect it will cycle around again to local computers..... I've used the lot of them, and so far, the most practical and usable was the networked computer. Next time around, it will be a bit different.
THE ENTIRE FILE has to be transmitted to the remote host, and KEPT there during the session. So the result is that your information IS in fact "in the cloud" regardless of any "convenient fiction" that the files are local. Obviously they have to go to the "cloud" to be worked on, at which point you have lost control of them, you have no idea if they are stored, or not stored, somewhere in the cloud. And you do not know what happened in between.
Transmitting all that information back and forth will not be fast, either, even if the computations themselves are fast. So the "refresh time" will suffer.
One more secure way of doing it is to offload just the heavy calculations, and not the entire file handling. That way it is at least possible that the information transmitted would be difficult to associate with any specific design.... it would never be sent in its entirety. I suspect that the design could still be recreated from that information, but it would be far more difficult, and could be assumed to be "commercially secure".
When the entire design must be transmitted, and cloud stored for the duration of work, access to it by unauthorized folks is as easy as picking up money from the ground. You cannot guarantee others do not have access, because you simply do not know.
An attempt to encrypt it in transmission would only extend the time taken....
It is so simple to just do it locally...... I have no need to do my work on a Commodore 64, never owned one, never will.
I am amused. I have seen computer go from a single central item, to a central unit with terminals for many users, to a computer for each, to computers in a network, networked with central storage, and now back toward a central unit with terminals. I expect it will cycle around again to local computers..... I've used the lot of them, and so far, the most practical and usable was the networked computer. Next time around, it will be a bit different.
JST
Alibre Super User
The other issue with cloud storage is losing access. Even if nobody wants to steal your data, they may not care if you ever see it again.
There have been, for instance, cases in which a cloud storage system was, or at least was alleged to be, used to store data that was a violation of various laws. Copyright laws, laws against sedition, etc.
In some of these cases, the Feds have simply shut down the entire storage operation. They were not at all interested in what happened to the other customers' data, they were interested in securing the evidence of wrong-doing. As far as I know, thousands of people never saw their data again in at least one case. I presume the same in other cases.
It is not acceptable for business data to be simply lost or tossed due to causes outside your control. The IRS is not interested in your problems, they want your tax bill paid. and so it goes. If your records are lost or held hostage to some investigation, that is no concern to the IRS, business partners, creditors, etc, etc. Depending on could storage is risky, they are all commercial operations, and as such, are not immortal.
Plus, there can be just failures that simply result in your data being protected with the wrong password due to some cross-up. The more secure the system, the worse that is. And the larger the operation, the harder it will be to get your data recovered. They have bigger fish to fry.
There have been, for instance, cases in which a cloud storage system was, or at least was alleged to be, used to store data that was a violation of various laws. Copyright laws, laws against sedition, etc.
In some of these cases, the Feds have simply shut down the entire storage operation. They were not at all interested in what happened to the other customers' data, they were interested in securing the evidence of wrong-doing. As far as I know, thousands of people never saw their data again in at least one case. I presume the same in other cases.
It is not acceptable for business data to be simply lost or tossed due to causes outside your control. The IRS is not interested in your problems, they want your tax bill paid. and so it goes. If your records are lost or held hostage to some investigation, that is no concern to the IRS, business partners, creditors, etc, etc. Depending on could storage is risky, they are all commercial operations, and as such, are not immortal.
Plus, there can be just failures that simply result in your data being protected with the wrong password due to some cross-up. The more secure the system, the worse that is. And the larger the operation, the harder it will be to get your data recovered. They have bigger fish to fry.
There have been also cases where feds take all the company computers and servers as evidence even though they only suspect one of them (in the movies, not sure about real world).
But probably you all are right, the future will be bigger computers with massive local hard-drives and tape backup and internet/cloud is not going to affect cad business at all.
Let's just enjoy the ride and refresh the subject after a decade.
ps. OP, I'm sorry for hijacking your thread with cloud-or-not debate
But probably you all are right, the future will be bigger computers with massive local hard-drives and tape backup and internet/cloud is not going to affect cad business at all.
Let's just enjoy the ride and refresh the subject after a decade.
ps. OP, I'm sorry for hijacking your thread with cloud-or-not debate
Mibe
Alibre Super User
JST said:
No, that's not how it works. There are many different solutions and for parallell computing it's quite easy to implement (FEM, rendering etc). For Alibre Design, which is basically linear computing, new ways have to be developed. A torrent-like system could be a solution, to distribute the file globally but encrypted with may clients and syncronized locally when needed. There are no remote host, but many that share the data. No other than yourself can figure out how the file originally was created. The point is that pure cloud solutions are vulnerable and new variants must be invented.
JST
Alibre Super User
3dcad.fi said:
That was basically how the folks in the one case I know most about lost their data. It was an issue where some people had been using the service for music file sharing, etc, a copyright case. The company servers were indeed seized and never were on-line again. I do not believe the company itself was charged, but they seem to have gone out of business anyway. The whole thing was reported in the news at the time.
nvanlaar
Senior Member
bigseb said:
I get the security/NDA problem. It is legit. Although, I would ask, how many people/corporations trust online banking?
Why wouldn't it be faster? It can be and is exponentially faster. Cloud computing gives the ability to leverage hundreds or thousands of processor cores instead of 8 or whatever your PC currently has. Autodesk and a few other companies have been doing this for years with rendering. What used to take days to render on a local render farm now takes a few minutes leveraging cloud computing. There is no reason that anything that is multi-threaded cannot take advantage of this.
JST
Alibre Super User
nvanlaar said:
Banks are slightly more regulated, and expected/required to be safer as repositories than startup cloud storage services. Especially when the services put right in the TOS that they are not responsible for data loss.
Can you imagine a BANK putting in a mandatory agreement that you cannot hold them responsible, and you have no rights of recovery if they lose your money? (although I expect to see them starting to slip that into their "terms" any day now)
JST
Alibre Super User
nvanlaar said:
Just invert the problem.....
Banks do it because they HAVE TO have something that at least "looks good" for security, and works decently. They face more problems than just a few disgruntled customers if they mess up. The bank customer's insurance company (the FDIC) is displeased if the bank does not do a decent job of securing the money.
Cloud storage sites have no requirements... whatever they do is "out of the goodness of their hearts", meaning they need to do "something" that looks like security to get the cuustomers, but nobody has a big stick to beat them if they mess up. So they have a completely different level of need than a bank. Probably they do the minimum.
Banks would also just do the minimum, if there were no oversight.
TylerDurden
Alibre Super User
Banks hold your money, which is the same as anybody else's money... if they lose it, insurance can replace it. Not quite the case with your files, I rekon.
Banks, governments, healthcare, online enterprise, and individuals are ALL having issues with online security... Identity-theft being an industry in itself, and WannaCry anybody?
The cloud-computing users' privacy agreements are with one company. When that company dissolves or is acquired, the agreement is void and "assets" are up for grabs, including user data.
Back to the main topic:
Any software offered by Autodesk has to help make the company money at some point, or it will be killed*. That shoe has yet to drop.
*(BTDT)
Banks, governments, healthcare, online enterprise, and individuals are ALL having issues with online security... Identity-theft being an industry in itself, and WannaCry anybody?
The cloud-computing users' privacy agreements are with one company. When that company dissolves or is acquired, the agreement is void and "assets" are up for grabs, including user data.
Back to the main topic:
Any software offered by Autodesk has to help make the company money at some point, or it will be killed*. That shoe has yet to drop.
*(BTDT)
I think AWS for example has some level of interest in keeping files safe as it can be difficult to get more customers if data is ever compromized. I just read that security software company F-secure is aiming to switch from their own servers into using public servers like AWS - I suppose they see it as secure as having their own server..
Ps. didn't wannacry lock your pc files and spread through intranet to local servers? With cloud cad you can just pick up $299 chromebook, sign in and continue your work..
Or make a cold boot to get rid of viruses / other unnecessary files and have your OS running smooth again, sign in and start working
Or use whatever OS you see fit as long as it has standard browser with webgl you're good to go..
Ps. didn't wannacry lock your pc files and spread through intranet to local servers? With cloud cad you can just pick up $299 chromebook, sign in and continue your work..
Or make a cold boot to get rid of viruses / other unnecessary files and have your OS running smooth again, sign in and start working
Or use whatever OS you see fit as long as it has standard browser with webgl you're good to go..
JST
Alibre Super User
Wannacry was ransomware that apparently did not even work.... It encrypted the files, but even if you paid, the folks who created it could not actually un-encrypt the files, so there was no actual way to recover them whether you paid or not.
I actually see that as good.... if people cannot get their files back even if they pay, then they will not pay. and folks will quit doing ransomware. That would be good.
But if you have a backup from before the infection, then you can be back in business by, at worst, getting a new HDD and installing the backup. Many would see that as the safest, in case the program lurks somewhere less accessible in the disk.
If you had he infection, though, odds are that it would get into your cloud files as well, one way or another. Then you could re-install the infection if you accessed certain cloud files.....
I actually see that as good.... if people cannot get their files back even if they pay, then they will not pay. and folks will quit doing ransomware. That would be good.
But if you have a backup from before the infection, then you can be back in business by, at worst, getting a new HDD and installing the backup. Many would see that as the safest, in case the program lurks somewhere less accessible in the disk.
If you had he infection, though, odds are that it would get into your cloud files as well, one way or another. Then you could re-install the infection if you accessed certain cloud files.....
bigseb
Alibre Super User
Wannacry was supposedly ransomeware that infected systems through pdf attachment in an email using a backdoor in the Windows OS. Everyone was told to install all updates for Windows to seal the breach. I jumped on this bandwagon and the updates crippled my PC , hence my complete reinstall a few weeks ago. Now I have reverted to my previous security protocols: use AV and AMW, leave UAC on, don't open emails from unknowns, don't broese dodgy sites... all the common sense stuff basically. Worked fine before.
Personally I don't think that cloud storage is anymore at risk the home or business PC's, mainly because servers of this type run on Linux. Which brings me back to my gripe for the last few years: No Alibre on Linux. But that's gone way off topic now...
Personally I don't think that cloud storage is anymore at risk the home or business PC's, mainly because servers of this type run on Linux. Which brings me back to my gripe for the last few years: No Alibre on Linux. But that's gone way off topic now...