Cloud: You Should Never, Never Doubt What Nobody Is Sure About

You knew I'd get around to it eventually, right? The Cloud. I can't really think of a current technology trend that evokes such excitement, fear, and mystery…all at the same time. Similar perhaps to a four year-old going to Disney World for the first time. Listening to the tech companies take you through the cloud is similar to ingesting dirt-covered golf balls: hard to swallow and irritating the entire way through. Unless you have taken the time to clean them. Hmmm. Let me stop there. You get the idea.

I have written this blog now three times, mostly because I got going and quickly felt like I was taking you into an anthill, with tunnels going in all different directions. Trust me, you're glad I started over and decided to break this subject into a few posts.

For now, just lift your arms and let the bar fit snug against your waist. Try and keep your hands in the coaster while we take a ride.

My dear friends, it is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.  - Willy Wonka 

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

Ok, so let me start by telling you where the Cloud came from. It didn't float into the lexicon of life last year as the advertising would like you to believe. It came to us the end of the last century, in the very early days of computing. No, I am not talking about the early days of Windows computing;  I am talking about the Jurassic period of computing when the T-Rex of the day was IBM, the Brontosaurus was Sperry, and green screens roamed the Earth. You'll remember these beasts as refrigerator-sized monoliths that stood inside what looked like a small ballroom, complete with an elevated dance floor, and the droning sound of humming fans, spinning floppy drives, and hammering impact printers, all dancing about. Here's the fun part: they were called microcomputers. And the green screens, well they were called dumb terminals; "dumb" because they were nothing more than a keyboard and screen (no e-rodent at this time) by which we fed the monster with data. All that calculating (as it was called then) was done in "that magic ominous room." Behold, we were in the computer age, with what was then called host computing…and no PCs.   As time went by, we started to develop the need to compute on a personal level, moving all that computing power away from the big mainframe and onto the desk. Hence the dawn of the PC age. Yet we still needed a central place to do "big" computing things, store data, and share it with each other. So, the modern-day server was born. 

You are now over the first big hill on this coaster ride, which brings us up to about ten or so years ago. Go ahead. Take a moment and reflect. We thought we had it all figured out now didn't we? Windows XP was just released, everyone had an email address, and these two guys named Larry and Sergey were trying to make their bones in the crowded Internet search engine space with BackRub (to be eventually renamed Google). It seemed that host computing would join the great gig in the sky. Then, a funny thing happened: the Internet entered puberty and started to resemble, well, a teenager. It was going through some significant changes, doing things that didn't seem to make much sense (at least at the time), always hungry, a bit moody and, if you asked, it was the foremost expert on everything. See what I mean? And what of host computing? Well, it had been relegated to distribution and manufacturing companies that were labeled as being "behind the times." In fairness, at this stage most people didn't know they existed any longer. Most people had always seen the computer world through Windows. Moreover, they thought of IBM as the company that "lost" Windows.  Here is what happened next: a small group of tech companies, led by none other than Larry Ellison of Oracle, tried to convince businesses that they were doing it all wrong. A PC on every desk? Servers in every office? Nonsense! Too expensive to buy and maintain. We need to go back to host computing. See, your servers should go "over there" (or perhaps it would have been better to say "come to us") and a terminal goes on your desk. Yea I know we've been here before. But this time it will be different; this time it will be better; this time we will use an intelligent dumb terminal. We will give them color, a Windows-like interface, and even a mouse. We'll call it a diskless workstation. Hold on, that sounds too confusing; thin client sound much better. Friends, I give you the technology messiah, reducing cost while doing virtually everything a PCs does, without that messy maintenance and upkeep. And what shall we call this new flavor of host computing? Well we can't call it host computing because that conjures up visions of old IBM stuff. We will call it…wait for it…thin computing.

And what happened next? Let's just say the world didn't abandon its PCs to the level that Larry Ellison preferred. A piece of advice: any technology that has the words "intelligent" and "dumb" within three words of each other should be a considered a prophet for failure.

Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous

The real deal with going back to host computing, thin computing, or anything-other-than-PC/Server computing lies in the "gotcha." See years ago, the gotcha was bandwidth. Now, for less than the cost of a single share of Facebook stock, fast Internet access is readily available. Then it was the cost of PCs. That too became less of an issue, with robust desktops and laptops widely available for less money than a good gas grill, including a monitor that is as thin and flat as a sausage patty. This leaves servers. Quick side note: in order for all of this "over there" computing to work, you have to have computing horsepower and storage located in a place that everyone can reach. Like a rack of servers in a datacenter, connected to the Internet. Servers cost a lot of money and take up space; and the space to store them can become expensive pretty quickly.  Well, now thanks to virtualization, the server "gotcha" has been solved since multiple software servers can live in the same physical server hardware. And while they live together, they function independent of each other except when called upon to share things between themselves. Believe it or not, it works well. It is almost like having your entire family living in one really large house, with each smaller family group having its own wing. Very cost effective and sensible…at least on paper. That is until you meet that uncle on your wife's side of the family. You know the one that everyone thinks is "a little off. "  At a family gathering, he stands on the table and delivers a verbal assault on known history and science, proclaiming that Alice Kramden was in fact the first person to walk on the moon, beating Neil Armstrong by nearly a decade.  He knew this to be true since Ralph Kramden put her up there. For those who don't know the Kramdens', click here. As it happens, he hadn't been drinking, at least not this time. Needless to say, he is checked for sharp objects and carefully escorted to his room, without causing any other issues.

Virtual servers behave the same way. That is, while living together in the same box, they get along well and can handle themselves accordingly when one chooses to misbehave. Software servers living together require fewer physical servers; fewer physical servers cost less money. Less money lowers cost. Lowering costs means you can now make it pretty appealing to have your stuff living "over there" instead of in your office. So yes, for the first time, the idea of remotely hosted computing (i.e. cloud computing) is getting some legs. However, we are not quite "there" yet. There are rules, best practices, and other safety precautions that must be defined before everyone can safely fly in the cloud. Unfortunately, this will take time, data loss, and downtime on the part of early adopters in order for the Wild West of cloud computing to finally get a sheriff. I'll cover that in more detail during the next post.

The suspense is terrible... I hope it'll last. 

Want to know where the name "cloud" comes from? No, it wasn't invented by one of the big tech companies. It actually came along from guys like me. For years, whenever it comes to drawing out a network (yes, I really do draw them out), I, like the rest of my IT brethren, use a picture of a cloud to symbolize the Internet or the network which lives outside of your office network, PCs or servers.  As the Internet became more widespread in its use, host computing came back around. And this time it would be called cloud computing, paying homage to the doodling done each day by us propeller heads. What is confusing for most people is the over-use of the term. Cloud computing has become the moniker for every system that runs "out there." A Caribbean-sized umbrella that every Internet-based service is being sat under like beach chairs. At its core though, they all describe the same basic concept: your programs, your data, or both live and run on someone else's network. So cloud computing is really Internet Computing. 

Everything is not going to be "in the cloud." Nor should you feel compelled to jump on the wagon. More important, you shouldn't feel like you are left behind since most of you are already have it in your daily life. It just wasn't called "cloud something" when you started using it. If you have an online email account, like  Gmail account, you are using a cloud email system. Nothing to install on your PC or device. And all your data lives out there. How about Netflix? Yes, it is a cloud service. Why? Because you don't own any of the movies. You pick one you wish to watch and it automagically arrives at your TV or mobile device…you guessed it…from the cloud. Use Pandora or Spotify to listen to music? Yup…cloud music service. Pick the music you want to hear and press play. Music is streamed to you wherever you are. No schlepping around all those CDs or uploading music to your device. Uploading…jeez…so 2010.

On the business side, there is backing up your data online. HyperVault (www.hypervault.net) is a really good example here. Used to be that servers were backed up each and every day to tape. Yes, tape. A gigantic and unreliable pain in the hind quarters. Nowadays, our customers still make the same backups, however, they are sent to remote servers in datacenters. You guesses it…cloud servers. And it happens automatically with no tapes. I use HyperVault at home to backup all the pictures, videos, and financials that I collect at home. And I'm an IT guy.

Want a new use of the cloud? Try this one out. While writing this blog, I installed a Nest (www.nest.com) thermostat in my home and at our office. It is the first of a new generation of programmable/learning thermostats, designed by a former Apple guy. I know you're saying, "Big deal. It’s a thermostat. You're way behind. I've had a programmable one for years." Well, so have I. This one is different. Really different. You install the this thermostat in place of your old one. You spend a few days adjusting the temperature to your liking, merely by turning the dial…like an old school thermostat. Immediately it begins to learn your heating and cooling habits. No programming days and times and temps. It comes with a built-in proximity sensor. That means it can detect when you are home and when you are away. It also knows when you are away longer, perhaps on vacation. Try that with your old Honeywell thermostat! Here's where the fun comes in. See, the Nest hooks into your home WiFi.  A few turns of the dial and, with no help from your HVAC guy or the neighbor's kid who knows about computers, it is on the Net, talking to the Nest cloud servers. Why is that useful? Well, how cool (I couldn't resist) would it be if your thermostat knew the weather outside your house, and could adjusts itself.  Nest knows thanks to…you guessed it…the cloud. Nest knows it takes longer to cool your house down on a humid 95 degrees versus a dry 80 degrees; it knows that some days have more daylight (and heat) than others. And it knows exactly how long it takes your A/C unit to cool your house, based on previous days. Your current thermostat has no clue how long it should take to cool your house let alone the scathing heat outside of it. It runs endlessly until the desired temperature is reached. Kind of like a dumb terminal, huh? Now then, since you are using the Nest cloud service (which is free by the way) you can securely control your thermostat from your smart phone, computer, or tablet, from any place you have Internet access. That's right: remote control thermostat. It also tracks your energy usage each day and adjusts itself so that you can keep your head cool and save money. Nest is a really good example of things to come with the cloud. Things that don't necessarily have to do with your PC, server, data, and all that other obvious cloud stuff.

The Everlasting Gobstopper

Ah the gobstopper (aka the jawbreaker). That childhood treat that keeps your mouth occupied for hours. Widely considered to be the Grand Poobah of candy, it lasts a long time, changing colors and getting smaller the longer you keep licking or sucking it.  Yet it remains a gobstopper through and through, until it completely dissolves. The Cloud closely resembles the everlasting gobstopper. Highly evolved and rarely seen in the wild, the legend of the everlasting gobstopper speaks of a candy that cannot be finished and never gets any smaller. As you coast to a stop, ponder that statement for a moment. The cloud has been around a long time, appearing in slightly different forms and even going by different names. Yet the bones have always remained pretty much the same. And it would appear that the cloud is indestructible and will never get smaller. No truer metaphor exists for the cloud than the everlasting gobstopper.

While it seems clear how all of this IT stuff would make its way to the cloud, most of you didn't think of the non-IT side of things now did you? That part of it seemed, well, a bit hazy. Years ago, some of you will remember all that talk about refrigerators and hot tubs being hooked into the Internet. You shook your head and mentally commented on how we, as an advanced civilization, were wasting our creative brain cells on silly technology like an Internet-enabled fridge. Please. Then along comes the Cloud and a few choice words from yours' truly. I hear the collective ah-ha right about now. You can see it now: the day your fridge will text you to pick up milk.  Sorry, washing the dishes is still a bit further down the road.

You may now lift your hands and allow the bar to rise from your lap . Be sure to smile as you exit the car to the right and remember: the next time someone asks you to explain this whole cloud thing, offer them a piece of candy and then take a moment to smile as they look at you in a most peculiar way. Who knew that technology could be so sweet!

P.S. Watching Willy Wonka for the first time with your daughter. Priceless. Thanks Laila.

Copyright © Richard Harber, Decision Digital Inc. All Rights Reserved. Except for the images.