There are two things to know about me. First, I have a muse, who I call Inez. Second, Inez has seen the future.

I understand the utility of ubiquitous data access, a user-friendly, fully synchronized online and offline existence. It may be too much to ask.

Some of today’s most popular applications, including enterprise email applications and web browsers, threaten to condemn users to “virtual Purgatory.” These applications attempt to synchronize increasingly large amounts of media rich data. The result is complex synchronization that is slowing clients to a crawl. Complex archive solutions are constantly struggling to encrypt, compress, archive, synchronize and recall data. The ensuing data smashup robs client PCs of free cycles, rendering them momentarily unresponsive, leaving me and thousands like me with millions of useless, small, utterly idle moments. With the rush toward multi-client data ubiquity, it looks like we are being condemned to Purgatory.

An entire generation of applications that attempt to host content simultaneously online/offline is coming. Software Titans are deploying browsers and client-compiled applications that speed the deployment of online/offline applications. Software architectures designed to provide data and application integrity while having to live in many places at once may drive our clients into virtual self destruction.

A leap to a complete and fully integrated Cloud may avoid virtual Purgatory.

The Cloud can more easily extend functionality to a very broad set of clients. Today’s clients are heterogeneous development environments with an abundance of client-specific code and widely varied capabilities. Try to find a phone that that can play a flash video? Or a television that can surf the web? Or a game that can be played on any client? Or a stereo that can play FLAC? Now imagine a singular client that can enable all of these usages on all of these platforms! That is the potential of the Cloud – application portability yielding rich application experiences on almost any form factor.

A Render Cloud is a layer of capability which helps complete the vision.  Render Clouds employ server technologies to render complex scenes in direct response to user input allowing the entirety of the application to reside in the Cloud. By rendering a scene remotely, the client is simplified, needing only to “play” the rendered scene, analogous to playing back video. Smaller, lower bandwidth clients receive scenes rendered at their resolution, while better connected  clients on faster connections with large screens receive high resolution experiences.

Rendering in the Cloud can solve the bandwidth problem by capping the bandwidth problem. All I need to do is refresh a screen with data at a particular resolution appropriate to the client’s screen and available bandwidth. No additional bandwidth needed between the client and the server, ever -  only three variables, screen size, interface visual integrity, and upstream user input. Peak bandwidth requirements become fixed and predictable.

The vision of rendering in the Cloud brings new meaning to What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG). If I just typed the letter Q, and I see the letter Q, then the letter Q is in my document somewhere far away on a well managed server in the Cloud. We can finally edit critical documents like spreadsheets online because we have visual confirmation that our critical keystrokes were received, not just sent.

The fully integrated Cloud can solve the multi-client problem. If the client can assemble the pixels and provide input, it can be as powerful as the most powerful super-computer. And once again, no complex client side applications and synchronization, with the added benefit of a cap on the bandwidth problem. Cell phones become supercomputers, capable of running the same applications I can run on any client, regulated by ergonomics and screen size.

The online Titans will work to deploy from the web down to the client, as the client software Titans move in the opposite direction. By deploying in the Cloud, both can avoid the painful intermediate step of trying to deploy complex online/offline applications. Both can avoid punishing users.

Inez suggests a more radical vision; partitioning the Cloud and the Client, suggesting that our data portability and privacy problem is an artifact that will soon disappear as we come to possess a powerful and omni-present client. Our Client will have strict rules for exchanging data with the Cloud, maintaining data integrity for both the Cloud and the Client. A topic for another day.

Learn more about Cloud Computing from AMD on our Virtualization blog.

Simon Solotko is a futurist and strategist who has lived in service of the extreme user community for his six year tenure at Advanced Micro Devices. Simon has been a creative force behind AMD64 technology and commercial, value, and extreme desktop processors and platforms. Simon previously spent 5 years in Strategic Planing for Raytheon’s Intelligence Information Systems Division focused on High Performance Computing systems integration. Simon’s interests include The Future and The Distant Past. Simon has attended Kent State University, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and The University of Texas studying Computer Science, Finance, Mathematics, Social Science, and Marketing.

Simon Solotko is a Senior Brand Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.