By Tim Ferguson, 20 August 2009 09:00
COMMENT
Cloud computing has gone hype-crazy. But too many buzzwords stop businesses from make sense of technology, says Tim Ferguson.
Cloud computing - if the evangelists are to be believed - is going to change the way businesses access services and information forever, cut carbon emissions and save them a packet in the process.
Some even argue the cloud could prove to be more important than the PC.
And boy have the vendors jumped on the proverbial bandwagon. Not a day goes by without someone unveiling a cloud computing 'platform' or 'solution'.
In the end, however, the hype surrounding cloud computing hinders businesses trying to work out how they can benefit from the technology.
But first: What is cloud computing anyway? Is it just a new name for technologies that have been around for years?
I recently attended a roundtable on the subject and in a room containing vendors, customers, analysts and tech journalists, no one quite seemed confident in their definition of cloud computing.
Cloud computing sounds great but like the clouds in the sky, it is becoming increasingly hard to work out where it starts and where it ends.
There are two general definitions that are bandied about. One is computing power and storage that are accessed via the internet but which reside on a service provider's hardware - think Amazon Web Services.
The other refers to software applications that are accessed in a web browser and hosted remotely. I'm sure this was called software as a service last time I checked - at least that kind of made sense.
Along with these definitions, people are now talking about 'private clouds', which as far as I can tell either means hosting computing resources in a central server within your business, or having it hosted on servers run by a hosting company - as opposed to multi-tenancy, where lots of businesses have their data hosted in the same datacentre.
Analyst house Gartner seems to have all of this covered with its definition of cloud computing: 'the convergence of three trends: service orientation, virtualisation and standardisation of computing through the internet'. Basically, if it's not software and processing that sits in a box by your desk, it's cloud computing.
Whatever the definition, it's not just vendors that are goo-goo for the cloud. The term has truly been seized by the PR mob too.
At salesforce.com's recent customer events I noticed the word cloud has been added to the familiar 'death to software' schtick that Marc Benioff has been pedalling for years.
And then there are the press releases - too many to count - all riddled with 'the cloud'. Here's a good one, put out recently by a technology service vendor. This sentence includes the word 'cloud' five times - count 'em.
"Organisations can create a private cloud within their datacentres, a public cloud through secure [vendor]-managed cloud solutions, or a hybrid cloud solution combining private and [vendor]-managed cloud services."
Phew.
Sure, overusing the term gets annoying but what gets me even more is that the term 'cloud computing' - like all buzzwords - is being attached to all matter of products and services to make them sound all new and shiny, whether they are or not.
For example, data hosting companies have been around for years - with disaster recovery and business continuity services able to replicate data off site, for example - but they're now calling their services 'cloud security' to attract customers.
The danger is that the hype surrounding the term will lead businesses to rush into adopting a technology just because it's defined as cloud, and not because it's actually of any use.
Buzzwords are a perennial issue in the tech world - remember web 2.0? and businesses must be practiced in seeing through the hype surrounding them.
The first step for businesses hoping to become more savvy about the cloud is to make sure they understand that the term encompasses a wide range of things, some of which may be useful and some of which may not be.
For the vendors, they will no doubt find their long-term success will be linked to the quality and usefulness of their products and services - rather than their ability to overuse the buzzword du jour.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Cloud Computing is nothing but new industry Jargon for the good old Mainframe computing model.
2. Paul Fretter
Welcome to the age of Ephemeral Computing
Grids, webs, clouds, virtualisation....and my PC is connected via 'ethernet', built from a 'Ghost' image....argh none of it is real!
Strip away the hype and you have a remote server session and an authentication layer (hmm sounds familiar), or a remote software service (oh, like web servers, RPC etc).
A so-called 'new' paradigm is required every now and then to stimulate excitement and encourage turnover of equipment and services. The marketing implication is as if "you must be stuck in the stone age if you aren't looking seriously at cloud".
Now, where's my cave painting kit I need to leave a message?
3. Karen Jones
The trouble is with any jargon like this is that it refreshes so often that I'm loathe to jump on the bandwagon because I'd rather be ahead of the game and invent the next buzzword instead!
Whether it's cloud, ASP, SaaS, the point is that organisations can see the benefit of offsite services. Whether it comes under the heading of cost efficiency or business continuity just helps determine who's going to stump up the cash.
Looking through the fad and the jargon you can see the way things are going for software provision, and hopefully organisations will realise that they can have the same cloud service and experience for their current pstn telecoms without having to invest in new and expensive IP telephones where qulaity and security are still not up to scratch.