Geek Speak Made Simple: What is cloud computing?

When I asked the question "What do you hate about technology?" the buzzwords of the fanboys came up often. Buzzwords make me tired. There are so many self-proclaimed "experts" that show their alleged superior knowledge by using buzzwords to describe some technology product or feature. 

What is cloud computing?

The phrase "cloud computing" is one of the most obnoxious overused terms in modern technology geek speak. Simply put, the cloud is just the internet. It's when a bunch of computers get networked together and you can access that network from anywhere. Storing data in "the cloud" just means it's available online so you can get it on multiple devices that have access to the internet.

What is the fascination with cloud computing?

For a few decades, there was the power to the people, with more and more "work" done locally on the computer in front of you, and more files stored on local servers. Computer networks became decentralized. 

After many technology departments spent great sums of money on preparing for Y2K, when the Year 2000 and the dreaded Millennium bug was feared to crash all our computer networks, many cost-cutting programs were put in place. Many financially strapped IT departments looked at how to save money, and things started moving away from a very decentralized model to a more centralized model. As technology improved, and strategies such as virtualization evolved, the need for servers scattered throughout an enterprise was moved to smaller but more powerful devices at a central location.

Now comes the next step in the evolution, those servers at my location are moving to "the cloud." That simply means even larger more powerful devices at a central location shared not only by my enterprise but by many others. 

The cloud offers the "security" of my information stored on a super-secure server that I don't have to worry about. It offers me, as in the local IT department fewer worries because someone else maintains the server so that is less I need to worry about, correct? Well, maybe.

Fewer worries, less need for the local IT department right? So what happens now if the "network goes down" as in we lose an internet connection? No one can do any work. That's progress, back to the future with the issues we had with a centralized model. Perhaps, in some ways. Companies that went into the cloud are now thinking about a hybrid model with a mix of cloud-based solutions with some type of local backup. Go figure.

For those really geek: the origin of the term cloud

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology paper published in 1996 titled "The Self-governing Internet: Coordination by Design" shows an illustration of the internet connected together by a "cloud of intermediate networks." I've found other references to "the cloud" earlier than 1996, but the MIT paper is the earliest document I could find with a cloud used graphically to represent the internet. In the 1990s it became common practice when illustrating local networks connecting via the internet a cloud was used to represent the internet.

My Mission: Geek Speak Made Simple

The Guru 42 Universe was created to stretch your mind beyond the buzzwords to help you achieve business success. In our world today, and especially in technology, acronyms and geek speak are sometimes hard to avoid. Some times having a meaningful discussion requires breaking topics down into simple terms.

Father of our Constitution James Madison is quoted as saying, "Philosophy is common sense with big words." Madison would probably agree with me on my rants about buzzwords, they are often big words to describe common sense terms. 

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