The “cloud”!! The thing we knew as the Internet on many a whiteboard for so many years…..that thing we all decided to know little about, (okay, at least layers 1-2), because it was magic!!!!
WE HAVE LEARNED OUR LESSONS NOW YOU DUMB PRODUCT VENDORS!!!! We don’t need another cloud…..we’re smarter than that now! WE KNOW YOU USE THAT TERM TO HIDE THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA AND WANT TO “CLOUD” THAT FACT IN A BLOODY CLOUD!!!
Can you seriously believe, that we believe that by “hiding” the “difficult” things, you make us think you know what you are doing and keeping us secure?! You’ve lost the plot….not that most ever had it, so to regain face (ie; keep revenue growth on path), lets hide sh*t in a “cloud” to cover up our inadequacies.
So, I am starting an anti-cloud movement and I ask you all that anytime you hear and see a sales rep talking about “clouds”, you ask the question; “what happens when many clouds come together….do we have a storm? and what does that mean to my investment with your company?…will I get my money back if I cop a category 5?”….. Please share your stories here!
BG did a post in the forums about this today:
http://beastorbuddha.com/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=108
I had to comment. Some of the people’s thoughts are priceless….I also need to rethink the software I use for this blog 
“The Cloud” has been around for a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_terminal#Graphical_terminals
The Google man is a laugh and more.
Add another to the list of stupid titles…”Developer Advocate” WTF!!!???
Has Google forgotten their background so much to the extent that they need a “Developer Advocate”? sad sad sad Google….you need Developers…..that is where you came from! You shouldn’t need someone like that!
Definitions of “advocate” on the Web:
* recommend: push for something; “The travel agent recommended strongly that we not travel on Thanksgiving Day”
* a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea
* a lawyer who pleads cases in court
* preach: speak, plead, or argue in favor of; “The doctor advocated a smoking ban in the entire house”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* An advocate is one who speaks on behalf of another person, especially in a legal context. It is used primarily in reference to the system of Scots law, Anglo-Dutch law and Israeli law. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advocate
* A person who argues the case of another, such as a lawyer in a court; A person who speaks in support of something; A person who supports someone to make their voice heard, or ideally to speak up for themselves; To argue for someone else; To encourage support for something
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/advocate
* To speak, plead, or argue in favor of, as in an animal advocate.
http://www.bestfriendspetcare.com/cat-glossary/cat-terms-A.cfm
* (Gr. parakletos), one who pleads another’s cause, who helps another by defending or comforting him. It is a name given by Christ three times to the Holy Ghost (John 14:16; 15:26; 16:7, where the Greek word is rendered “Comforter,” qv). …
http://www.levendwater.org/dictionaries/Easton%20Bible%20Dictionary/T0000100.html
* A person knowledgeable about disability issues and procedures who takes action to help a child with disabilities; an advocate can be a parent of a child with disabilities or a professional.
http://www.child-dev.com/drupal/node/39
* skilled speaker, trained in the law, who presented the case of a party at a Roman trial (Dersin).
intraweb.stockton.edu/eyos/page.cfm
* the person presenting a case to a court or tribunal on behalf of one of the parties involved.
http://www.artistwd.com/joyzine/australia/strine/a-3.php
* A person selected by the Unit, District or ACBL Management to represent the organization by prosecuting the complaint.
http://www.d21acbl.com/Discipline/Definitions.htm
* a representative of the protection and advocacy agency described at 5 MRSA §§19501-19509.
maine.gov/dhhs/OACPDS/DS/CommCaseManagement/Certification/definitions.html
* Barrister (especially Scotland) The defender of a cause.
http://www.fisicx.com/quickreference/politics/legalterms.html
* One who pleads another’s cause or in support of an individual. A special needs advocate primary responsibility is to represent the best interests of the student in the educational process.
http://www.web4.org/WappingersSEPAC/Definitions.htm
* The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/soc_studies/blackhistory/quiz/
* A member of the Scottish bar, the Scottish equivalent to barrister. An advocate is a member of the Faculty of Advocates and may be either a junior or a senior (a Queen’s Counsel).
hjem.get2net.dk/safsaf/glossary.html
* includes, but is not limited to, advising, recommending, furthering by overt act, or admitting a belief in a doctrine, and may include the giving, lending, or promising of support or of money or any thing of value to be used for advocating such doctrine.
law.justia.com/us/cfr/title08/8-1.0.1.3.66.0.1.1.html
* Student, faculty, or staff person responsible for insuring that a patient receives good, personalized care at the Dental Clinics.
http://www.janela1.com/vh/docs/v0001418.htm
* A person who helps either individuals or groups obtain support and advocates their rights.
yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/insurance-glossary.html
* a trusted person who assists, advises, encourages, and/or speaks up on the patients’ behalf. An advocate is someone who is willing and able to be an informed and involved member of the healthcare team. …
npsf.disted.mcw.edu/InfoCenter/Glossary/a.asp
* Jesus’ name for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comforts us, speaks for us in difficult times, and makes Jesus present to us.
http://www.christourlife-digital.com/christourlife/se-grade6/
* Someone with special expertise who represents the cause of a person with disabilities or group of people with disabilities, primarily in legal or administrative proceedings.
http://www.annikeris.com/Glossary/glossary_a.html
@Khurt,
Have you pasted the wrong link?
@Google man, LOL…thanks for that…stupid titles will always work here at BorB. I know I love to be called Chief (though no one calls me that in the office) and I am thinking of making my team become “evangelists” though I know I have no hope……”advocates” though is new to me so I will put it to them!…….only in America you get this.
DD
We need to start the anti-cloud movement. We need to be loud and make it work. I pledge my support for it!!
And the question about the storm. Every IT tech dude should throw that at each sales guy and lets have a laugh. I will post my shit here if I get that!
Everyone else should post their cloud stories here.
The cloud, operated at backbone networking levels by super-humans, systems by somewhat smart simians, but inhabited by total monkeys. The ultimate ‘outsource’. The ultimate abstraction. Just make sure you can easily get your data back kids if the big bully doesn’t play fair.
I like the concept of full geo-arbitrage moreso, not just the phone monkeys. I worry about the code complexity when fully fledged OS’s are abstracted and more layers introduced and not less. Unless prefixed with “Now seriously” please take my commentary always with a sprinkle of humour. What will be inside
the private or public clouds at lower layers? Cloud security?… anyways, methinks one must search for the Middle Way in tech, otherwise known as Simplexity
Cloud neq infinite resources.
Cloud times cloud = ?
Cloud cubed = 9?
Cloud broken = Tech Support [Indian accent] Have you tried rebooting it, sir?
Cloud cost = 6 trillion dollars for zombie processes and recursive loop transferring VM to other cloud provider and back again.
Skynet now shuts out users. War begins.
100% behind you here DD, the monkeynet resources are at your disposal for this attack on the cloud.
Personally I may like to ask people to draw a picture of how communication happens within a cloud. It would be amusing I think.
In 2001 when I was going CCNA, every time (and it was often) they drew a Cloud I asked them what was in it.
I think I became known as a trouble maker – but I learned about the context of each oversize so it was worth it.
Where do I pledge?
I’ve been calling it Clown Computing around here. It makes whiteboarding way more complicated though because it’s heaps easier drawing a cloud than a clown.
@cmlh LOL…I can imagine the meeting:
Sales guy: blah blah blah cloud computing…
You: Did you say clown computing? How stupid….get the hell out of my office!
@Noony and Dec…I reckon they are fair questions to ask and I think that should be the standard approach from here on in also.
We could take em’ all out in one go? The World Summit of Cloud Computing
http://www.cloudcomputing.org.il/ … we could blow them all away [excuse the pun] Muhuhuhuhuhahahahahah!
You guys are going to friek out when you see this list of terms related to cloud computing.
http://gevaperry.typepad.com/main/2008/08/new-cloud-compu.html e.g. cloudburst, virtual private cloud and cloudsourcing! Welcome to the internet my friend, how can I help you?
Funnily enough the wiki setup from the cloud-computing mailing list doesn’t have aything yet for the definition of cloud computing. http://sites.google.com/site/cloudcomputingwiki/Home/definitions-of-cloud-computing
@D3, LOL – thanks for the link to the terms mate. Man, that is too cool. I need to make some up and use them in conversation.
Wonder if the RTA in Sydney could use the “cloud” terms in reference to the troubled train network? Could solve them a heap of issues and their circumstance isn’t that dissimilar. Hey, you no longer get on a train…you enter the cloud. The RTA will no longer have to explain anything about the working and non-working details of the system! BRILLIANT!
And why do they always draw puffy, boring ol’ cumulous ? Its so yesterday.
Why can’t we have altostratus, cirrostratus or nimbostratus ?
BG.
I think the momentum is too great and there is no stopping this now. All we can do is go along for the ride and stir it up as best we can. If we name and shame enough, at least we can have a laugh.
Ha…love this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10009574-62.html
@cmlh…you should have registered it!
@DD – I think you’ve been confusing me with cmlh
He’s the bassist, I’m the drummer 
@Christian….ah…you are right. Sorry mate.
BTW, I have another friend Kristian who plays guitar…we could be onto something here.
This is a scary one:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;220322212;pp;1;fp;4;fpid;16
Last time I checked you guys sell Qualys and isn’t that delivered from “the cloud”……. Sure its overhyped, but your company is one of the many who sell it. I wonder if you disclose this to your client base champ.
Please take a photo of you punching yourself in the face
Your blog is pretty good normally guys (and you still have my respect) but this is a bullshit effort. Lift your game and post a retraction.
hello:
“Cloud Computing” is a buzzword that I have heard or seen mean one of the following things:
- Outsourcing systems
- Distributed storage
- Distributed processing
- Extremely large networks
- A cluster of small devices
- Software as a service (a la Qualys)
- Having no idea what your network guys are doing (seriously)
- Using a web site (seriously)
We’re not railing against services or internet based software here, we’re railing against a stupid marketing term.
Touche matthew (re:hello)…
Aside: Qualys is ‘cloud’ based external/public netblock scanner, but has internal appliances which talk to the cloud for C&C. The internal scanners do most of the grunty work. Other functions are available via the portal.
Aside: I think the fundamental issue is not the functional abstraction of technology e.g. clouds, but the abstraction in terms of CIO’s and CTO’s living in the clouds thus being required to understand even less, expect more and constantly forgetting that TLC, custom code/middleware and operational excellence is a pre-requisite! (let alone vision, strategy, execution, asset classification and utility based enumeration of IT costs).
Oh yeah, let’s not forget business requirements, anyone remember what they are?
@hello, sorry for confusion. Yeah, aimed solely at the marketing and BS use of the term “cloud” as emphasised by Matthew and D2.
Re: photos…gees, you’re a hard man.
All the best mate. DD
[...] This terminology, acronym or whatever you want to call it, is nothing more than a vendor marketing tactic from the 90’s. It is BS and deserves no more from me now. It’s been done here in this post: Cloud Computing is for Wankers [...]
Down with the dumb terminal. Give us the full monty.
Depending on who you ask, cloud computing is either the next big thing in IT services or just another amorphous label tagged onto what is a 20 year evolution of the ideals of utility computing….
The latter is the opinion of NCITA’s Dr Renato Iannella. He actually used much more colourful words than amorphous, right in front of 50 or so people at a cloud computing conference.
Looking back on my notes, he told me cloud computing is “another BS tool for marketing to sell more s**t”.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/266934/cloudy_days_sunshine_state?fp=&fpid=&pf=1
Pull no punches.
[...] Great to see a Big 4 dude want to punch people re: Cloud Computing. Go Matthew…join the club. I think it’s to late though….critical mass of acceptance of the term is now to great! [...]
Railing against the appropriation by sales people of a visionary term like “cloud” aside, there IS demand in the market for scalable and resilient server based application hosting environments.
Invoking privacy and security as showstoppers ignores the reality of the competing drivers that infosec practitioners continualy juggle. The cloud paradigm presents few new challenges to security architecture, just new deployment choices which foster higher availablity and lower management costs, at the expense of data integrity, confidentiality, and systems complexity. Making the choices which address the latter downsides is where the challenge lies.