I have looked at clouds from both sides now

The term "cloud" is popular amongst the digerati for describing storage space and services located on diverse networks. The biggest cloud we know - and indeed the biggest cloud there has ever been - is the Internet.



The word "cloud" is a perfect fit with the concept. An amorphous mass, difficult to pin down, looks solid from the outside but fly through it and it seems to melt away...



By the way, if the title of this piece rings a nagging bell with you, it is a lyric from a Joni Mitchell song. Hum along in your head if you know it or play it in the background [1].



Network clouds are a fantastic concept. You don't have to know or care where stuff lives on the cloud. It takes care of itself. You just connect to it and the right thing happens somehow. How cool is that!



Unfortunately, there is an alternative way to formulate the last paragraph. It goes like this:



Network clouds are a dangerous concept. You cannot know where your stuff lives on the cloud. You cannot care for or protect it by yourself. You have no option but to connect to it and hope that matters such as security, availability etc. happen somehow. How scary is that!



Well, it is not scary at all for some users. Perhaps your e-mail falls into this category. Perhaps not. Perhaps your calendar falls into this category. Perhaps not. How about your spreadsheets? Your accounts package data files? Your contact lists? For most people, there comes a point where the convenience of the network cloud concept and concerns about privacy and ownership and security and availability etc. come clashing together in a big banging noise.



Is the convenience of the cloud simply at odds with these concerns or can they be married harmoniously somehow? I think the latter may be true and it involves looking at clouds a different way (geddit? - cue the music).



Real world clouds exist at different distances from the earth from low to high. Now, think of the low clouds as network-space that is closer to you - your Intranet. Think of the higher clouds as network-space that is further away from you - the Internet. Clouds are very good at blurring boundaries. We can exploit that...

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