The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Dreaming on a cloud - migration as an obstacle to cloud computing: an IT Skeptic Special Report"

Inventing a technical description to a marketing term is nuts

Damon Edwards — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Skeptic's view of this as an attempt at technical solution to a business problem is spot on.

In my opinion, "Clouds" are nothing more than a shiny marketing term that nicely wraps up all of the x-as-a-service offerings that have sprung up recently. Its as handy a marketing device as Web 2.0 was... but it's a marketing device. Now that the marketing has proven to be effective, there is this massive rush to backfill the concept with some sort of technical definition.

"Clouds" are a marketing device that describes a BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP, not a technical innovation.

Clouds are not “clouds” because of technical reasons. Cloulds are “clouds” because of business reasons. What’s ec2? Its Linux, its Xen, its some Ruby-based tools, its a billing system (time sharing is not a new invention), and its a whole lot of commodity hardware and network gear. There’s really no truly new technology there. What actually is new? How it’s being run... the business relationship between you and the provider, the financial model under which you get to use the stuff, the limits on access and operational controls, the ownership of the operational risk, etc.… these are all business operations concepts and this is where the real innovation lies.

Techies like to think that we're the big dog and those marketing folks are the tail... we'll guess what? The tails wagging the dog all over the place.

hmmm... maybe I should write a blog post on this :)

-Damon
http://dev2ops.org
http://controltier.com

No tech can save brain - do not outsource your problems

mbuzina — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:28:28 +0000

Cloud computing may save an experienced outfit a pretty penny or even a handsome dollar, but the average IT shop should shy away from it. As always they will spend a lot of money on something they do not understand fully and they expect it to think for them.

IT management should not talk about the cloud (unless it is the service they offer), they should talk about people, motivation, people, customers, clients (sounds all like people, doesn't it?).

Clouds will not save brain (http://buzina.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/the-cloud-cost-saver-or-brain-saver/)

Marc

Large scale adoption of the Cloud

skeptic — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:48:11 +0000

Hi Bernard
yes I acknowleged you are "open-eyed but upbeat about addressing it, and believes it can be overcome readily". I think we agree but I am more curmudgeonly about saying it and more pessimistic about the resulting potential. Only a small number of companies will scrape over the hurdle of migration. Large scale adoption of the Cloud waits for large scale development of new applications, if they can get over your four other hurdles.

Thanks for the shout out

Bernard Golden — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:51:47 +0000

Thanks for commenting on my post. You're right that migration is challenging and needs to be examined with a strong business case in mind. In many/most cases, it won't pencil out. What I was trying to get at is that migration is not an unsurmountable obstacle; it's one that can be addressed if the business circumstances warrant. Maybe a way to say it is I see these issues as hurdles, not barriers.