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Yes, yes I know…ol’ Marc has subjected you to yet another bad pun. You’ve got to admit though that it fits the bill here. The term “cloud” is, in my book, one of the most over-used technology terms in recent memory, and it’s high time for change.
(Ridiculous sidebar: Anyone else watch Science Bob conjure that “cloud” on Jimmy Kimmel Live the other night? Hilarious!)
The thing is, almost all of what we use on the web today exists ‘in the cloud’ at some level or another. Think about it – your mail isn’t fed from a server sitting in your basement is it? No, it’s typically one of a cluster of mail servers in the “cloud” – perhaps located within your company’s datacenter or provided by Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, or the like. What about shopping? Our profiles, containing our shipping addresses, purchase preferences, and credit card numbers, likewise exist in the “cloud”. The social utilities we’ve come to depend on for business and fun – LinkedIn, Facebook, Salesforce, Twitter, Foursquare, etcetera, are also services used almost entirely in the “cloud”. The technology that powers the various “cloud” solutions continues to advance rapidly. This, along with increased availability and reduced costs worldwide for high-speed Internet access, has allowed the service offerings to evolve as well.
The fact that both individuals and growing businesses can tailor solutions from the breadth of available “cloud” services is fantastic. The issue at hand is the term “cloud” itself: an umbrella term most often used to describe and present ‘hosted’ or remote services – services which have expanded rapidly during the last two years. The term “cloud” has simply reached a point of causing confusion. For example, though commonly referred to as “cloud computing”, it’s not always actually computing, is it? We can now select from solutions allowing us to compute, store/archive/recover data, manage content, send/receive mail, place calls, conference, and network with colleagues, friends, and prospects – all with a moniker of “cloud” attached. “Cloud” is descriptive in this sense, sure, but only mildly so. My $0.02 is that the term “on demand infrastructure” – or simply “on-demand”- is more reflective of available solutions and less confusing than the term “cloud”. Adopting the “on demand” term virtually eliminates the need for wonder, fretting, or quarrel over the best flavor of the solution – public/multi-tenant (Amazon EC2), private (your own VMware or Terremark Enterprise Cloud instance), Platform (Salesforce), or hybrid form. Whatever the end solution, simply think of it as on-demand infrastructure; the level of access, control, and security needed upon deployment are completely up to – and configurable by – the user.
I’ve noticed in the past several months that several technology companies including Oracle, F5, Servosity, and Rackspace have begun to use “on demand” (seemingly in place of “cloud”) to describe their services, features, and benefits. I think it’s a smart move, but who knows where this will end up; the term “on demand” might work best for everyone. Might not.
Anyhow, Cloud: you’ve served us pretty well…thanks. Now it’s time to bid adieu and bon voyage. Oh, and when you reach wherever it is that you Internet buzzwords fade away to, please do say hello to our old friend “Web 2.0”, will you?
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