The Good, the Bad, and the Cloudy: Part 1

The use of computing to aid business has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. We have evolved from the early days of large, central computers with dumb terminals, to mini-computers, to PC’s, to networked PC’s, to the Internet and now to clouds. In essence, we have come full circle: from dependence on a big mainframe, to distributed computing and now back to another almost centralized model. It seems ironic that the big shift away from mainframes in the 70’s to PC’s to give people more independence has also been the main motivator in the push to cloud computing. Just like the telephone, we want utility-based computing, available anytime and anywhere. It looks like the cloud might be the answer.

So what exactly is cloud computing? Wikipedia (notice I am using a cloud/Internet-based reference here, not the traditional Webster’s) defines cloud computing as “Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet-provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.”

So what does that really mean to companies and organizations? It means that you can have as much or as little computing resource as you need at any given time and only pay for what you actually use. One of the main inefficiencies in information technology over the years has been the huge waste of idle computing power and storage space. Managers had to plan and buy for peak work periods while most of the time servers and storage arrays sat underused. With cloud computing, you only buy and pay for what you actually need. Usage is metered just like electricity and cell phone minutes. All costs are known up front and can be accurately budgeted for. In most cases the overall IT costs are significantly less than the traditional buy and maintain your own strategy.

There are different types of clouds to consider (cumulus and nimbus are not among them.) Public clouds are hosted in large remote datacenters all over the world. Your resources are separated but shared with others to achieve maximum usage levels and lowest pricing. Private clouds are also hosted in remote datacenters but your resources are segregated from everyone else. Typically these costs are higher than public. Then there are hybrid clouds, which are combinations of public and private clouds based on the needs of certain applications and data. The bottom line is that you can customize your cloud any way you want and be able to accurately predict its cost.

In Part 2 I will discuss the pros and cons of hosting your organization’s applications in the cloud. Stay tuned.