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Cloud workstations: the future of remote work

Isaac Lyman on April 17, 2022

Application streaming is one of the emerging technologies I'm most bullish on. So far its full potential has flown under the radar, but there are c...
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Isaac Lyman • Edited

That may be true for many workers but 95% seems high. Most people don’t code, run database queries, use Excel, produce videos, store work files, or run any of hundreds of other desktop apps in the browser.

EDIT: it’s also worth pointing out that many web applications are very client-heavy. Having a computer that can access the internet and having a computer that can do a given job on the internet are very different things.

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codewander

I have been approximating this for a while, usually using ssh. I like something like gitpod with in browser vscode over full workstation.

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Isaac Lyman

I think I heard of gitpod a few years ago and never checked it out. Thanks for the reminder, I’ll have to give it a try.

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Larson

It's not the future its already common in the industry. I guess this is your personal experience.

But check VMware or other big names in the industry. And technologies like KVM/ESXi etc.
nothing new here. Even sharing the GPU among virtual machines is old. The only one which is new the infrastructure for gaming. But the technology behind it its not special at all. Maybe some stuff.

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Isaac Lyman • Edited

The technology is available but not widely adopted. I’ve never interviewed for a job where cloud workstations were offered, never even heard of a company doing so.

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Liviu Lupei

Nice article!

But most of the services that you listed are struggling and aren't very successful.
I don't know exactly why, but maybe because of:

  1. Higher costs.
    Your company would have to pay for both your laptop and a cloud machine.
    You'd still need an expensive laptop, even if the workload happens in the cloud.

  2. Vendor lock-in, availability and price increases.
    The vendor might randomly increase the prices as they please, because they know migrating would be more expensive.
    And maybe when you need it the most, you'll see a "Under maintenance" message.

  3. Frustrating experience. I did connect to various workspaces on different cloud providers (including AWS), and even with my fast internet, it's not the best experience.

I would definitely use such a service in the future, when those downsides will be less painful.

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Isaac Lyman

most of the services that you listed are struggling and aren't very successful

That’s really interesting, how do you know that?

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Liviu Lupei

I think you can tell that just by following TechCrunch and by following startups from that area.

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Makar

Great thoughts -- remote workstations are inevitable!

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Oleg Krasavin

It tends to centralization, and I don't think it's a good tendency. We should get some compromise between the two sides.