Every week I get phone calls from people claiming to ‘represent’ the big name companies like Microsoft and IBM. Yesterday I had a call from someone “calling on behalf of IBM”. It went something like this (abridged) ….
- Caller: “Hello, I am calling on behalf of XXXX. Are you using Cloud technology or do you plan to ?”.
- Me: “Well that depends on what you define Cloud technology”.
- Caller: “That’s a good question. Are you using it then ?”.
- Me: “Well, if you mean virtualized infrastructure, then yes”.
- Caller: “What software are you using?”.
- Me: “VMWare”.
- Caller: “So you are using Cloud. Do you intend to increase your usage ….”
And the call pretty much ended there, with the caller not really getting any leads for his sponsor. This, and several other posts, had me thinking about the definition of ‘Cloud’.
There’s a lot of discussion going on about what exactly ‘Cloud Computing’ means. It seems that every vendor’s Marketing department is tagging their product or service with the ‘Cloud’ tag to make it trendy and hip.
One problem is that there is no clear de-facto definition of what ‘Cloud computing’ means. For me, the definition that covers it is ….
“Shared computing resources that can be dynamically scaled according to business requirements, faster than traditional computing environments.”
Gartner’s definition
Many people take comfort in the words of Gartner. Their Cloud definition is ….
“A style of Computing where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are provided as a service to multiple customers using Internet technologies“.
Gartner also list the five key attributes that Cloud computing has:
- service-based
- scalable and elastic
- shared
- metered by use
- uses Internet technologies
What’s getting the purists agitated?
Many ‘purists’ only consider a service to be a Cloud service if it has some of the following features :
- Internet hosted.
- Hosted and/or managed by a third-party service provider.
- Uses virtualization technology.
Here are some examples of services being dubbed as ‘Cloud’ Services, but not fitting their Cloud definition :
- Private Cloud – a company using virtualisation technology ‘internally’.
- Webmail – these services have been with us for years before the term ‘Cloud’.
- Office-in-a-box type solutions that offer a Citrix desktop with e-mail and other desktop services.
- Web-based services like LinkedIn, FaceBook, FlickR and Salesforce.
So where does that leave us?
Unfortunately, there is no definitive definition of Cloud Computing. Even using the Gartner definition, the previous list fits the criteria. Remember that the Gartner definition does not mention ….
- virtualization
- specific technologies
- hosting
- or that it has to be Internet based (using Internet technologies isn’t the same thing)
Until another term comes into the mainstream, we need to accept that the term ‘Cloud’ is going to get more airtime, become even more pervasive and be ‘tagged’ with other products and services – although I did have a laugh at the chap who said he had a Cloud on his laptop – I think that really is pushing the boundary !
The good news, is that the ‘Cloud thing’ is driving forward the development of technology and services, which we can all benefit from.
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