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Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does "cloud first" mean in the context of an operating system, does it mean that you need to always be connected to

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does "cloud first" mean in the context of an operating system, does it mean that you need to always be connected to the internet to use it, like can you use the computer offline?

fartcannon 4y ago
It means you're renting it and they're using your data for profit.
vorpalhex 4y ago
It uses Google Drive (or similar) to store all your files. There is a local drive used for caching so you can work offline entirely but the idea is that the workstation is "cattle" - you can throw it into a shredder, log into a new chromebook and have all your apps/files/etc installed and ready to go. The selling point for these are light computer users.
- LoveMortuus 4y ago
  That sounds pretty cool, having access to all of your file from any computer that you login. But would guess that you'd have to pay quite a lot for such a luxury especially if you store more then just text files and such. Thanks for the explanation! ^o^
  - e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
    Storage is actually not that expensive in enterprise settings. One of the schools around where I lived ran some kind of google education enterprise solution (they rebranded it to something else now but it’s the same thing) and for something like $5/mo/person (probably more now) the institution had several hundred TB of common storage and each person had an additional hundred GB, along with a complete IT package with a LMS, enterprise level fleet deployment and management systems, etc. Yeah licensing cost was a significant line item in the IT budget but not as much as you’d think. I mean, think about it, a 1k student school will have pay probably 100k to google (staff costs money too and price has probably gone up since I last looked at it), which is the salary+benefits of like 1 and a half IT guys. You’ll need way more than that for 1k students, plus enterprise internet, servers, hardware maintenance, laptops for everybody, etc. So if you add everything up it’s a small part of the IT budget to achieve this.

fartcannon 4y ago

It means you're renting it and they're using your data for profit.

vorpalhex 4y ago

It uses Google Drive (or similar) to store all your files. There is a local drive used for caching so you can work offline entirely but the idea is that the workstation is "cattle" - you can throw it into a shredder, log into a new chromebook and have all your apps/files/etc installed and ready to go. The selling point for these are light computer users.

LoveMortuus 4y ago
That sounds pretty cool, having access to all of your file from any computer that you login. But would guess that you'd have to pay quite a lot for such a luxury especially if you store more then just text files and such. Thanks for the explanation! ^o^
- e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
  Storage is actually not that expensive in enterprise settings. One of the schools around where I lived ran some kind of google education enterprise solution (they rebranded it to something else now but it’s the same thing) and for something like $5/mo/person (probably more now) the institution had several hundred TB of common storage and each person had an additional hundred GB, along with a complete IT package with a LMS, enterprise level fleet deployment and management systems, etc. Yeah licensing cost was a significant line item in the IT budget but not as much as you’d think. I mean, think about it, a 1k student school will have pay probably 100k to google (staff costs money too and price has probably gone up since I last looked at it), which is the salary+benefits of like 1 and a half IT guys. You’ll need way more than that for 1k students, plus enterprise internet, servers, hardware maintenance, laptops for everybody, etc. So if you add everything up it’s a small part of the IT budget to achieve this.