09.18.09
Cloud Computing; we must do something about this term.
There are a lot of terms that leave people scratching their heads but ‘cloud computing’ is one of the worst in a while. Everyone you talk to in and out of I.T. is thinking something different when the term comes up. The term ‘cloud computing’ is nebulous. (That is a good pun and I am not ashamed of it)
So let’s rectify this a bit. When we think of things like Google docs, Google mail and salesforce.com, we should call this the web application cloud. There are some one-trick poinies like Carbonite that work in the cloud too and may or may not use the web as their transport. These could be called Cloud products.
Then there are services we should think of as cloud computing services. Services like Amazon.com’s S3 storage are not a complete a product in themselves but are building blocks. These services are cloud computing services or web cloud computing services if they have only a web API (application programming interface).
Now it gets a bit tricky with vendors like VMware talking about building your own cloud. You can use products like VMware and others and build an on-premise cloud. This is multiple VMware servers or the Vsphere product letting you move inbstances of servers between physical machines. You might even be able to move them over a WAN or VPN to a remote hosting site or anyther company location. This might be the on-off-premise cloud.
It is possible to outsurce all your computers to someone else and run everything in their cloud of physical or virtual machines. This might be called outsourced infrastructure cloud or oursourced virtual infrastructure cloud.
Some people seem to imply that moving their operations or computer room contents to another company’s datacenter constitutes cloud computing. So let’s be inclusive and call this co-hosted cloud computing. When you do this it is usually done to get away from the issues of building and maintaining a computer room with special fire, cooling, and electrical services.
I’m not a big fan of many of the cloud computing types above. Even if you master the subleties of the financial arrangement, have goot toos to migrate and extract data, and even if you have a great exit strategy, the speed of light and fiber-seeking backhoes are still some of your worst enemies. When you boil it down, nearly any form of cloud computing is really outsourcing and the key is having a contract or agreement that is air-tight, and has rewards and penalties.