[kwlug-disc] Cloud vs/and 'P2P VPN' (?) - why / what's out there.

[unsolicited]

There has been a fair bit of discussion recently surrounding Clouds and 
their use.

Although I have always had difficulty with the concept/need (since I 
don't run a web server), it making more sense to me to make use of 
inevitably excess computing horsepower we have in our homes. Especially 
if merely investigating the usefulness of a facility. i.e. Does 'this' 
bring anything to the party / problem I am trying to solve at that moment.

SSH, VNC, and Dropbox (et al) serve well for what they do. [My issue 
with Dropbox is the lack of file, let alone field, locking.]

For particular use cases, a VPN, especially for windows file sharing, 
let alone general inter-network access, has made more sense, and worked 
well.

In this latter case, Logmein Hamachi has been wonderful, both Linux and 
Windows - particularly as it punches through NAT / doesn't require 
firewall ports to be opened. It talks to a central server, direct 
connection details are negotiated, and clients instructed to use them. 
The 'cloud' server is only used long enough to sort that stuff out. Once 
sorted, everything happens home to home. Unlike OpenVPN which requires 
ports to be opened, at least for the server, which isn't always possible.

Sadly, for good security reasons, Logmein Hamachi will not do gateway to 
gateway. Nor can a client talk to more than 1 gateway at a time.

Apparently the (search) term for this is 'P2P VPN'.

Are there other such services out there like Hamachi that people like?

I've seen references to Tunngle, Wippien, NeoRouter, Remobo. 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wippien)

Anyone have any comments or experiences or suggestions?