I have looked at clouds from both sides now

by Sean McGrath

September 27, 2007 —

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...

Imagine a box sitting on your network. It is a server box. On this box there is a virtual machine. In that virtual machine multiple application suites from different vendors - each in their own separate virtual machine. They are sand-boxed from each other but each have storage space on the server box. Periodically, updates to your server applications are downloaded from the suppliers. You connect to this server box primarily using a web browser. You see the storage and applications on this box as web-based. They form a part of your Intranet but they also form part of the overall amorphous cloud. Users do not need to know or care whether the data/application is on the server box in the corner or out there on the Internet.

Fortunately, there is an alternative way to formulate that last bit. It goes like this:

Users need not know or care whether the data/application they are using is on the server box in the corner or out there on the Internet. BUT, the system administrator has complete knowledge and control. Individual virtual machines on the box cannot see each other's data. All outward bound data flows are monitored by the system administrator and subject to contractual SLAs with the suppliers. Security and continuity for the server-based applications is with the administrators control...

That sounds much better doesn't it? I would buy a suite of applications that worked that way, wouldn't you? Is this where we are headed?

...

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

...

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqQlfFuQFXo

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