Seeing past the marketing cloud, in cloud computing

A lot of our customers have been talking about “cloud computing” and asking us to explain it in some simpler terms. Some have even got caught up in the marketing hype, of shall we say, the larger cloud computing players. This really isn’t surprising when you start looking around the web for information on cloud computing, it can be quite confusing, full of marketing hype and sometimes, I would say, misleading.

Cloud computing, in its basic form

Let’s look at what cloud computing is. First off, the cloud is just really a term for the internet or externally hosted space. Why cloud? Well for those of you not from a technical background, it’s simply because when diagramming out networks etc, externally hosted content or the internet was drawn as a cloud.

In its basic form, and without any jargon, cloud computing is simply an externally hosted environment, accessed and connected to via the internet. That’s it. Oh, and it’s not a new idea by any means. If you think of it as this pure concept, cloud computing has been used since the birth of the internet. By hosting a web site, which contains content, on a third parties server, which is connected to and accessed by the internet, you effectively are using cloud computing.

So what is new?

Like many things in IT, the concept is nothing new; it isn’t even a new technology. What is new is the way we see that concept and the things we add, or take away. For example, think back to a time before Blogs were on the web. Many of us read news articles on the web, we may have even used forums and discussion boards but never blogged. But, blogging was a massive new thing, and with all the hype that went along with it, many people believed it was some new technology, something that had never been done before. In essence, a blog is just a news article that we can comment on, or it’s a forum where you don’t respond to one topic, you respond to an author’s topics. See, nothing new there. But something new is created, but it’s not a new technology, rather a new way of looking at things. The same is true of cloud computing.

Cloud confusion

Now things get a little complicated when people look at how companies provide their clouds. By this I mean, how the third party actually provides you with hosting space.

Looking at Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud), we see that the implementation is to provide virtual machines for people on their hardware, effectively using one machine as many, expanding virtual machines to meet the usage demands. In this method, Amazon EC2 does give developers a lot of freedom to deliver software in any shape or form. The cloud really is a virtual machine.

Google offers its own cloud computing solution; however, developers have to deliver applications written in Python. This is very limiting, and in essence a developer is not presented with a personal machine, rather a space reserved for them on the Google servers.  

Microsoft’s Azure provides a cloud platform that enables developers to deliver web based applications. As long as you wish to develop in Microsoft technologies, then Azure will provide all that you need to run your applications in the cloud. So this is a little bit of a mix between the Google solution, and the Amazon solution, however Microsoft bundle a lot of extras, such as storage services, Windows Live integration etc.

Please note at no point have I discussed other concepts that often get confused with cloud computing, concepts such as Parallel distributed computing, or Grid computing. We will talk about this another time….

Should you use cloud computing….

I see some real benefits, the obvious being accessibility to your content / applications. However, I see some real pitfalls too, most of which revolve around security, physical locations of content and the freedom to move away from a particular provider. The following article does highlight a number of concerns and issues for businesses. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/03/27/235439/security-concerns-for-cloud-computing.htm 

For the general public and even some small businesses, cloud computing makes real sense. They don’t have to invest in expensive hardware, backup and disaster recovery services nor payout for particular software.

A small business though will do well to look to standard webhosting environments and software development companies that provide external hosting of particular applications. My own company provides these services with our workFile ECM platform. We provide a Virtual Server on our externally hosted platform, and allow businesses to access and use all the typical content management functions across the internet. The difference here is that the storage space and physical location of the application and content is known at all times, it isn’t lost in the “cloud” as such. Also workFile is a highly secure repository, encrypting all content within its repository.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see massive potential for cloud computing, but more focused on delivering applications and storage space to the general public.

It’s all in the marketing…

As usual it’s how we market things and cost that determine how successful something is. In the case of “cloud computing” this really is true. However I have missed a trick, that’s for sure. My own company has provided “cloud computing” services and “cloud” applications for sometime. However, it has never been marketed as anything “new”. This is changing though, the language we use, and the way we describe these services will now be communicated as “cloud computing” and “cloud based applications”. And to deliver cloud based solutions, we won’t have to change a line of code….

The future of the PC, Social Media and the impacts on our lives

Ok, well that’s quite a lengthy title, especially for my first public facing blog. So first things first, what makes me think I can see into the future, well I don’t. However, as my father always says “To know where you’re going, first you need to know where you’re from”, and I believe this is true, even with IT.

I am in that rather unique position of being both a geek and a businessman. This means I do often look at new technology, concepts and ideas in a different light. My geek side really likes to know how something works, and gets caught up in its potential. However my business side looks at things in a broader and bleaker fashion. Because of this I often find myself disagreeing with my Technical Director (here at One Degree) and also disagreeing with more business focused facing people, PR departments etc (Honestly I am not hard to get along with…)

 

Where have we come from with the PC?

So where have we come from with the PC. OK, this is going to be a very brief and when I say a broad overview, get ready for how lacking in detail this will be.

Home computing wasn’t a big thing, it was showing promise though. The BBC B Micro started showing up in classes all over the UK, with youngsters starting to get involved. Things kept moving forward, however nothing was “revolutionary” until a young man by the name of Gates thought it would be a great idea to put a PC on the desk in every home. Shortly after that, the PC as we know it had arrived.

So how did Gates actually manage this? Simple, he made using the computer accessible to everyone.

 

So what’s this got to do with Social Media?

Well this is the new thing, or is it? Social networking sites in essence have been around for some years, though often aimed at the dating scene. Looking back, what is a little surprising is why it took someone so long to actually make these social sites available to everyone, enabling them to keep in touch with friends etc?

So now we are all on Facebook, many of us use twitter and are blogging. But are we? Just like the early computers, there is a lot of talk about the power of Social Media, and lots of potential, but are we in the middle of a revolution, or simply slowly moving forward?   If we take our PC history, I would say Social Media is at the same point the PC was in before Windows 3.11

Many of you are now asking, how can he say that? Facebook may have 39 million users, Twitter has close to 8 million users (sorry if my figures are a little wrong), that’s hardly small numbers, and to those of you who are saying this, I would say, correct. These aren’t small numbers. However, compare them to the actual number of people who have access to a PC, or the number of people throughout the globe. Or, the number of users on an adult dating site called Adult Friend Finder (in excess of 30 million). What does this tell me? It tells me that Social Media has the potential to be just as revolutionary for communications and PR as the PC has been for us as individuals and business.

 

So why aren’t there more Social Media users? Well going back to our early PC, it’s all about accessibility. At the moment the concepts of Social Media, getting people connected, sharing content etc are all good, however they do take effort for us to do. For some they just cannot be bothered, for others its simply they don’t have time.

So to make Social Media the revolution it is touted to be, we have to make it so easy and accessible that anyone can get involved at any time of the day.

 

The Future?

Well I believe it’s about accessibility again, this time how accessible it is to access our PC and our content, and therefore interact via Social media.

 Sounds a little obvious? Well I am not talking about Windows 7 being touch enabled here; I am talking about making communicating with my PC more accessible, or more to the point, the content and processing that computer has and does for me.

Take this scenario. I am a gym instructor, and spend all day at the gym training individuals. I don’t have access to a PC, and I don’t have my phone on with clients. When I get home, will I make the effort to go to the computer and turn it on just to look at Twitter or Facebook? No, I am too hungry and tired, so unless I have work to do, I won’t be online.

However, am I likely to check my phone? Yes. Am I likely to turn on the TV? Yes again. The mobile at present seems the best and easiest way to then interact with the world of the web, friends and content. However, the screens will always be too small and it will never match the computing power of my PC.

Where am I going here? Well, what if my PC is my mobile phone? Or, even better my PC is the TV? If I could control and communicate with my PC with those devices, then my PC is very accessible and therefore my content more so.

Essentially when I turn on the TV, my PC can tell me via the TV, what eMails I have, tasks I have to do, events that are up-coming, feed updates etc. I can then sit back in my sofa and quickly flick through my emails, feeds etc. I may even decide to complete a timesheet or expenses sheet for example, on my actual PC but via my TV.

There is nothing stopping my PC then communicating with other household appliances. Maybe I will have my PC controlling my cooker, pre-heating it for just before I get home. Maybe I will use my PC to control my central heating system? (I know we can do this to some extent, but doing this wirelessly, and as a common thing is what I am driving at).

Let’s take things further. If my mobile can communicate with my PC directly, why can’t I access my mobile from a friends TV for example? If I can do that, then I can pop into a friend’s house, use his TV to interact with my computer, all because my Mobile is with me – essentially connected to my PC.

 

The Cloud…

Maybe I don’t have to mean an actual physical PC. It could, quite easily be my PC in the cloud somewhere. With cloud computing comes a number of interesting ways in which we may actually make computing and content more accessible (just like Gates did with the PC originally).

The problems I have with cloud computing though always boil down to two main issues, actual physical location of my content and how secure is that content. Though I see so many benefits of cloud computing, something is nagging at me that this isn’t quite the way forward.

So what would I rather see? Well I would rather see my PC sitting in a room in my house, with all my devices securely and wirelessly connected to it (though not dependent on it).

 

So what is the impact of all this on Social Media  and our lives?

By making it even easier to interact with our PC and digital content, we have made it even easier and more importantly, social media far more accessible to everyone all the time. At this point, I believe social media will be a real revolution in the way business and we communicate with each other. If you like, Social Media will have its Windows 3.11 moment. Essentially we will almost always be connected to information streams and everyone most of the time.   At this point the powers of Social Media will far outweigh those of any other form of communication.

One point, remember, you can always turn off your devices and enjoy some me time…