Cloud Computing

• There is a lot of hype that computing will move off the desk and into the cloud.
• The cloud is just a bunch of servers linked together (in really clever ways).
• So, the client will get thinner, and the server will be more mysterious, and efficient.
• This is relevant for distributed games because the game can exist in the cloud.
• Thinner clients will support more mobile access, and will be cheaper, but you'll need a good connection.
• In the cloud, processing is fungible so cycles are more flexible.
• Of course the server code has to be parallelizable so that it can run on a variable number of machines.