When the Cloud is really low lying Fog

Fog is just a cloud that is low enough to the ground.

The trouble is because most of us live on the ground, it is the fog we see as our first cloud, for it is closest and within our grasp.

Presence status = Busy (It's hazy and I can't see clearly where I am going)

For a while everything seemed to be about "UC", unified communications. Now it seems everything is about the "cloud".

The problem to me seems that few people seem to understand what cloud computing really is.

I would argue that, like with UC before it, it is not so much the definition that is important but rather the benefits of cloud computing that one needs to focus on.

Let's learn from the wasted years of trying to arrive on a common definition for UC, and just skip this step so that with cloud computing we can focus on business benefits.

According to Wikipedia, "Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid."

I think the key words in this definition are shared and on demand.

Cloud computing assumes shared resources because it is through this sharing of resources that economies of scale are achieved.

Cloud computing also assumes resources can be allocated on demand, like electricity, you plug something in and it draws electricity and works. When you need computing resources, you simply "turn on" more capacity in the cloud, on demand, no waiting, no capital investment required.

I would argue that the real interest in a "cloud architecture" is not so much interest in the architectural model; but rather, interest in the key benefits that are associated with the cloud architecture:

1. No capital investment required: cloud resources are available on demand generally billed based on a "utility" model (like electricity you simply pay for what you use).

    

2. Time efficiency: the on demand characteristic of a cloud architecture also means no lost time waiting for provisioning; you need a cloud resource and presto it is available, no servers to order and install, no weeks wasted waiting for equipment to arrive and be installed.

    

3. Cost control: elastic resources (use as much or as little as you need and only pay for what you use); as opposed to something like your mobile phone plan where you most often need to pre-purchase a specific number of minutes and you end up paying for all of the minutes even if you don't use them.

    

4. Cost efficiency: cloud resources are shared across groups of users, as such per unit costs are generally lower benefiting from economies of scale.

    

5. Access mobility: because cloud resources are not located in a single defined place or on a single defined machine and are typically accessed over the internet, the cloud resources are available for access from which ever location required. This matches up well with the increasingly mobile workforce who sometimes may be in the office, sometimes working from home, sometimes mobile (in transit) and sometimes working from other locations.

    

6. Built-in redundancy: As an adjunct to item five, because cloud resources are typically located on multiple servers, a failure of a single server or even all the resources in a single data centre should not impact the overall service availability.

Now maybe you would add or remove an item from the previous list, but the majority of the items on this list must be satisfied in order to have a true cloud offering.

The haze starts to set in when people slap an adjective in front of cloud computing. We have things like "private clouds" or "internal clouds" that in some cases fulfill none of the architectural principles of cloud computing and as such deliver none of the benefits listed above. In the worst cases, "private cloud" simply is an updated label slapped on one or more existing servers in a data center. To me this is just a big fog machine!

We have "community clouds" that describes a cloud that not everyone uses – which to me is really the same thing as a "cloud" since not everyone uses any cloud service I am aware of.

Of course we then have "hybrid clouds", of which Wikipedia kindly says "…a standard definition of the term 'Hybrid Cloud' has not yet emerged". In other words, no one really knows what this means -- thus feel free to label anything as a "hybrid cloud" if it makes it sound sexier or more "hip".

Despite the confusion, cloud computing is real and the benefits cloud computing can provide to communications are real and measurable. Whatever we call it, let's all worry less about the definition and more that it is providing business value to our organizations and our customers.

Presence status = Available (I can see clearly now the rain has gone…gone are the dark clouds that had me blind…)

With apologies to John Nash who wrote "I can see clearly now" in 1972.

In terms of the cloud, can you see your own organization's strategy clearly?