I have now received my 200th email entitled “Demystifying Cloud Computing.” This one is from InfoWorld, but I have gotten them from just about every media outlet there is. This has got to stop.
People, it is not a mystery any more! If you are still “mystified” by cloud computing, you probably need to consider an alternate line of work that does not generate new ideas at the aggressive rate of one every decade.
Let’s get this over with.
Q: What is cloud computing?
A: It is other people taking care of shit for you on the Web.
Maybe it’s running a data center, maybe it’s storing your files, maybe it’s running your ERP system or email system. It’s, like, stuff you would do, but you are paying someone else to do it better instead, on demand.
Maybe there’s “scaling,” or “utility billing,” or “REST APIs” involved, maybe not. Ask a grownup.
There, consider yourself demystified. You may now go get some of the green paper out of your parents’ wallet and mail it to me.
the agile admin 
Ernest, you rock.
So cloud computing pretty much always existed since the Internet was created. That doesn’t make much sense.
From my perspective, it’s when the services other people are offering you can scale automatically depending on your needs at each moment.
Finally someone said it.
Thank you.
| From my perspective, it’s when the services other people are offering you can scale automatically depending on your needs at each moment.
See: “Maybe there’s “scaling,” or “utility billing,” or “REST APIs” involved, maybe not. Ask a grownup.”
Well, here’s the thing. There’s a “cloud” of things that might make something cloud, but there are always counterexamples. With my gmail, I don’t see any automatic scaling, I have a fixed quota. Not cloud? Most cloud providers, and this is a dirty secret, don’t automatically scale either. Azure, for example, lets you scale on demand – but it doesn’t figure that out and initiate it for you.
Sure, cloud is differentiated from Web business as usual by its consumption and delivery being more commoditized. Maybe that’s scaling, self provisioning, utility billing, better delivery, but it’s not always any of those… It differs across IaaS/PaaS/SaaS. Even discounting the mostly-lie that is “private cloud,” there’s not an absolutist list.
But this article is not for you smartypantses who clearly know it all already; it’s for those who are still apparently reading “Demystifying Cloud Computing” articles trying to figure out what cloud is.
I’ll do a followup with a more rigorous definition to make y’all happy…
Advanced students wishing to debate the definition of “cloud” may go here: https://theagileadmin.com/2011/09/13/what-is-cloud-computing/