Cloudy perceptions

I bumped into an entertaining video today, shot at last year’s Web 2.0 Expo, where participants were asked to define cloud computing. The simple question of “What is Cloud Computing?” elicited a wide variety of responses. And those responses made one thing clear: the vast majority of Web 2.0 people have no real understanding of cloud computing. It was like asking people “What is Nuclear Power?” and listening to them tell you how it allows them to watch movies on their 65″ plasma.

I’m not sure exactly when cloud computing first became synonymous with the Internet. But I think the problem stems from a couple of things:

• People confuse terms such as the “cloud” with “cloud computing”.
• Cloud services are selling and companies are trying to recast their products to ride the adoption wave.
• Marketing people are driving cloud computing hype and the resulting definition distortion.

Pretty much all of us Internet techs used the term “cloud” back in the day. We used to whiteboard diagrams for customers showing them how their 56k frame-relay connection was tied into the cloud. We would draw multiple office locations connected to a cloud in the middle. The cloud was just shorthand for the Internet. It was nothing special.

Somehow the notion of accessing websites and data on the Internet morphed into a distorted definition of cloud computing in some people’s minds. I blame businesses and their marketing teams that are trying to cash in on cloud computing adoption. They have no real understanding or concern for the misguided messages they are sending.

I think the most interesting part of the video starts at 3:50. The gentleman at this point of the video relates that “cloud computing is being able to sleep at night knowing that your servers won’t go down. Being able to know that your operations person can go on vacation”. And that’s the problem in a nutshell: marketers and vendors making claims that cloud computing magically automates business operations, scales infinitely, never fails, and cures world hunger. Now you know why old school IT people roll their eyes when they hear about cloud computing.

The promise of cloud computing is cheap, easily accessible, generally reliable, elastic computing power when you need it. Cloud computing does not ensure that your applications are designed properly, that your systems lack security holes, or that your staff know how to manage your online business. Cloud computing provides you with raw power but you have to know what to do with it.