Why, oh why, oh why, has every man and his dog started calling everything Cloud? Cloud Hosting, Cloud Apps, Cloud Services? Is it me, or was it only 6 months ago that these were called Virtual Hosting, Web Apps, Web Services? What's changed? In my eyes, nothing! I hadn't really noticed this until the other day when I was attending a "Cloud" seminar.
Cloud Hosting: What makes it Cloud? It's just Hosting on a Virtualization platform. Cloud Apps: Why are they Cloud Apps? They are just applications hosted over the Web, no? If we follow this trend we'll soon be calling WebMail, CloudMail!
Since I first heard about the concept of Cloud, I've been keeping a close eye on how it would evolve. It was meant to be the "New Black" and I if wanted to keep on the cutting edge of technology, then the Cloud is where it'll be at. Almost 2 years on and I'm still waiting for something to happen. In that time Virtualization has taken massive steps forward with VMware's vSphere Product, but Cloud is still only really in existence as a concept.
I've been regularly attending various Cloud focused seminars in the hope of seeing something special, something magical, something where I can think to myself "Now this is Cloud Computing!". But It hasn't happened yet. You either get techies giving talks on "conceptual" ideas about Apps with elasticity or how to scale databases on demand, or you get Marketing bods trying to flog their Virtualization Platform's as Cloud Platforms.
I mean who came up with the idea to use the word Cloud? Who was that person? Is he/she part of the same illusive contingent who decides what is "Politically Correct" and what's not? And why call Cloud, Cloud? Was it simply because it's always been common practice to use a Cloud image to represent "The Internet" on network diagrams? Or was it a scientific based decision as real clouds in the sky expand and contract independently. Or maybe it was based on the fact that scientists have spent many years studying Clouds and probably still don't fully understand how they work. 🙂
With all these question left unanswered, how is it that we've come to have some many Cloud Services/Products available to us? There hasn't even been a set of standards set for Cloud yet. What happens if when the standards are set, the standards are different to what people expecting?
Is Cloud just a Buzzword? Like Bouncebackability? One person makes it up and others jump on the bandwagon and before you know it EVERYONE is talking about it?
Personally I think the Cloud will pass us by. I don't think it will ever come to fruition, a bit like HD DVD, MiniDisc and Chesney Hawkes. Cloud products/services of course will be available but as I mentioned earlier, these won't be anything more than Virtualization Platforms. By the time software developers actually create software that enables fluidity, like Cloud idealists believe there should be, platforms would have moved on even further and combining the two will produce something beyond the Cloud……A form of Utility Computing? I'd Love to know your thoughts.
These are of course are just my views, which I have tried to make without reading other peoples definitions and ideas. I'm not an expert, I'm not going to pretend to be one. I just wanted to share with you some of the thought processes I've had over the past 6 months. As time goes by I'm sure my views will change. Maybe in a years time I'll look back at this post and laugh about what I wrote, maybe I could have hit the nail on the head. Only time will tell.
Here is Kate Craig-Wood's Definition of the Cloud, It makes for an interesting read (Note: Read after time of writing). I think it's really interesting, everyone has such a different view on Cloud and it's definition.
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My views circa early 2009 and mid-2008
http://vinf.net/2008/06/23/virtualization-the-k...
http://vinf.net/2009/01/08/what-is-the-cloud/
you're right - cloud is a marketing word in a lot of ways - it's just a way of hiding infrastructure/app complexity (ala virtualization) although it's also about a business model - rental vs. purchasing, buying services rather than kit and just paying as you go for what you use.
It's also about making the risk and complexity someone else's problem, outsourcing 2.0?
For me, this whole Cloud-madness is just another sign of that sales and marketing people taking more and more power. Maybe a bad analogy here: people in Hollywood are not making films anymore. According to them, they are creating "brands" and a sequel for a movie is just as normal as making tens of thousands of identical cars in a factory. They don't want to tell a story anymore, they just want to sell - DVDs, action figures, etc., using the movie only as an instrument to drive other (and far bigger) sales. As long as the sales are running, they are not concerned what's inside. They are not concerned even if what they promising is impossible. Titanic 2? No problem! I feel the same with Cloud. For the most of it, simple rebranding of existing technologies, then promises which couldn't be filled from the technical side, then the last 1% of something really new. Nobody wants to miss it ('what happens if this will be the business of this century?'), so they put something on the market, labeled with Cloud. Deep down in the core we can still find the original great ideas, but with ever increasing amount of marketing and sales crap. From a business perspective, I can understand that. From the technical side - not really. You can hide the technical details with a word towards your customers, but there must be something inside that cloud. Something solid. Yes, we need visions. But isn't this Cloud thing getting too far away?