Even before InfoWorld asked me to do a series of stories on cloud computing it was clear that “cloud” is high on the IT radar screen, either despite or –of because of – the economic downturn. It also helps that the definition of the “cloud” is, like its namesake, soft and fluffy enough to cover almost anything. Heck, even I'm a cloud customer now.)
When I learned to read network diagrams in the Stone Age, the “cloud” meant the Internet. It also meant you didn’t have to know the physical location of a resource (whether a Web page or your CRM app server) because the Web provides a logical address for it. Ergo, “cloud computing” means something 1) located on and delivered via the Internet and 2) whose physical location is unimportant, as long as an application, user or device can find it through a logical address.
But business being business, every vendor who could spell “cumulus” began pitching their stuff as cloud-enabled. Virtualization vendors are now “cloud” vendors since virtualization provides the logical paths to the physical resources. Anyone who provides security, or performance monitoring, or network bandwidth or even electricity, is now a cloud computing vendor since you need their stuff to access the Internet. We even now have “private clouds” made up of virtualized servers and storage that sit in a customer’s own data center. Uh, since when did “cloud” refer to a customer’s own WAN/LAN?
Needless to say, the editors I talk to are very, very skeptical of cloud pitches. If you do indeed provide (or help provide) apps or services over the Internet, explain precisely what you provide. Is it provisioning capabilities that help cloud service providers keep their own data centers running? Is it a specific application (like CRM or backup) you provide to business customers? Or is it an IT service (like security) you provide via the cloud?
If you’re playing in the service provider space – i.e., as an ISP or telecom providing backbone networks to the cloud providers – make that clear also. If your offering is several levels up the value chain from the end customer, it’s a tough sell to an IT book focusing on CIOs and other customer-level decision makers.
A great story, of course, is anything having to do with the downturn, and what some vendors claim is a “bottom-up” groundswell of thrifty business managers moving ultra-fast to cloud services for the cost savings, sometimes even bypassing (and annoying) IT. Do let me know if you have any such stories, as we in the IT trade press always love a fight, especially during a downturn.
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