Signal to Noise

Om points out in his recent post that the concept of cloud computing is muddied–that is, different marketeers have different definitions for what the cloud actually is.  I remember having the same debate about the definition of Web 2.0 a few years ago.  What it really boiled down to, in the end, was the Web 2.0 included two components missing from Web 1.0: 1. a healthy dose of non-browser web services, and 2. social-driven or preference-drive functions.

The same argument is occuring over what the Cloud is and isn’t.  I have my own theory that the symantics will ultimately give way to widespread social adoption (as was the case with Web 2.0) or cultural irrelevance (as is arguably the case with VoIP, thank you very much AT&T/Verizon).   In the end, Cloud computing will either get over the hump because there’s something truly compelling in it, or it will fade away into abscurity along with push web, active desktop, Vonage, and a thousand other nifty concepts that have had their 15 minutes of fame.

So what IS cloud computing?  In my estimation, the cloud is the same thing we used to call web hosting up until about 2006–with one arguable, barely-noticable difference.  Since 2006, the availability and cost-effectiveness of both Blade infrastructure and virtualization technology has increased substantially, meaning that it’s now possible to compartmentalize and virtualize the core pieces of hosting technology that run the server side of the web.

In essence, you can turn networking resources on and off when you need them, serving peak loads and ignoring moments of non-demand.  Indeed, before we had this monicre, “the cloud”, we had other words for the same idea, chief among them “on demand computing”.  Thanks IBM.  The reason we’re using the cloud to describe  this now instead of on deman computing probably has something to do with the Web 2.0 thought evolution.  People view the web in a much more organic way now.  It’s a playground, a garden, and an ecosystem, serving as a center point between instant communities of millions of people and interest.

That degree of just-in-time social organization requires a name that lends itself to mud, muck, cloudiness, and disorganization. Hence, the cloud, not on-demand computing. Not Web 3.0, which itself offers little meaning beyond a chronological sequence.

Yet the cloud is merely a brand, a catch-phrase designed to market the engineering ideas we in the tech community get all hot and bothered about to people whose purse-strings ultimately power the fulfillment of those ideas.  With that goal in mind, the cloud is a very poor brand indeed.

Now I know IBM was selling servers, but maybe they had it right with on-demand.  Guys, the “cloud” doesn’t need to marketed.  Let’s stop trying to hard-sell something that we’ve been using for years already.