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Ask HN: What does "the Cloud" mean to you?

27 points by ryanelkins 16y ago

I keep running up against different definitions of "the Cloud" and was wondering if there is a right answer or at least a general consensus on what exactly the term means. When I say that our startup, IActionable, is in "the Cloud" I'm referring to our use of Windows Azure, MS's cloud, and the distributed nature of our service, meaning that we can elastically scale within the resources of MS's cloud and boast some level of stability like a large company while only having to pay for the resources we use. Apps running within Azure, Amazon's cloud, Force.com, Google's App Engine, or Rackspace's cloud are "in the cloud" according to this definition. I've noticed, however, that many people say they are in "the Cloud" where they define the cloud as a server on the internet. Their thinking goes that since they store all the information remotely and there is nothing on the client's computer, their client-server architecture makes them "in the cloud". By this definition every server on the internet is a cloud, and every web app is in some cloud or another. So is it one or the other? Is there some other definition that I'm missing out on?

Artagra 16y ago
For me personally, I'd largely agree with your first definition - but I would expand it to services run on "private clouds" (ie, a corporate having a couple hundred virtual machines on a rack full of blades I would consider "cloud based"). However, if I look at our customers (techies and enthusiasts who build their own computers), they define a cloud based service as anything primarily online - IE, your second definition. I think this definition is gaining ground.
fizzfur 16y ago
If my mum starting using The Cloud in sentences she would mean "The Internet", she doesn't have the concept of a server, and doesn't really need to, she just knows it's "Out there somewhere". I think it would be unlikely for one of my peers (mostly developers) to mention "The Cloud" unless they were trying to be intensionally buzzwordy for comedy effect. They would be more specific. I/We would however say: a cloud to mean clusters machines (probably split into VPSs) xxxx's cloud to mean xxxx's server infrastructure/platform I like The Cloud as a common term to mean "Stored/Processed out there in the internet somewhere", not as a well defined technical term.
- ryanelkins 16y ago
  I think it feels "buzzwordy" because too many people abuse it. It is a legitimate term but it is being stretched to the point where it is no longer useful. To me a cloud is a system where I can dynamically change my resource usage without having to really understand the underlying structure supporting it. I don't install an OS, I don't monitor specific servers for failure, I never upgrade anything; that level of minutiae is abstracted away.
  - lsc 16y ago
    This is a valid definition... but it's not most people's definition. For example, if you are running on ec2, well, you've still gotta install the OS (granted, there are tools that make it easier, but you still have to do it, and you still have to keep up with security patches, etc..) you've still gotta deal with failure, deal with upgrades, etc... Granted, you could say that ec2 isn't cloud... you could say that ec2 is a VPS system with a decent and fast provisioning API. Your definition would say that hiroku and google app engine are 'cloud' - something few people would argue with... it's just that most people call ec2 'cloud' as well. This, I think, is why most technical people find the term 'cloud' to be useless... there isn't a strong and generally accepted definition that isn't so nebulous as to be not very useful.
    - jnoller 16y ago
      I don't think the need to consider maintenance and scalability removes something from the definition of "the cloud" - consider the fact that on modern VPSes and EC2 I can spin up new resources within a heartbeat - sure, I still have to think about stuff, but instance on for elastic resources is what I think caused the "cloud" term to come into being.
      - lsc 16y ago
        so your definition of the cloud differs from the definition ryanelkins gave. This is all well and good, both the "completely abstracts hardware and OS details" definition that Ryan gave and the "just allows you to really quickly provision new hardware" definition you gave are fine definitions, and both are useful services in many cases. but my point is that you get five nerds in a room and you are going to have at least three completely different definitions of "cloud"
deleted 16y ago
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jpr 16y ago
> many people say they are in "the Cloud" where they define the cloud as a server on the internet. To me, cloud would mean that the service has very good reliability, which your run of the mill "server on the internet" does not necessarily have.
Qz 16y ago
Computers I can't see and don't own. Suspiciously similar to a botnet. Actually I'm less paranoid about it than that, but only slightly.
- byoung2 16y ago
  How does that make Amazon AWS (which most people would call "cloud infrastructure") any different from traditional shared hosting?
obsessive1 16y ago
I don't think of the cloud as just a server elsewhere on the internet, but more of a group of servers, like EC2, or Windows Azure, where the data is shared between them, and backed up in various places. I have heard many people refer to the internet in general as 'the cloud', which I can understand, but I don't think of that as it's primary definition.
auxbuss 16y ago
I think of it, at least this week, as: resilient Internet services with persistence
crad 16y ago
To me, the cloud means trusting the base performance and uptime of my application to someone else.
novum 16y ago
(Disclaimer: I work at Salesforce) We at SFDC hear a lot about offers to businesses of "your own private cloud", which is essentially marketing jargon for something very un-cloud-like: running software locally, on your own servers, while you're completely responsible for the entire operation. It's a grossly disingenuous hijacking of the "cloud" terminology that I've found promotes confusion. Most of the other responses here would match my own definition of the cloud: software, offered as a service, where all the underpinnings (data center management, software updates, redundancies, reliability) are abstracted away from you. The key is that you only need two things to access a cloud resource: A web browser, preferably != IE6 An internet connection When I explain the cloud to people who don't read HN, I usually make a comparison to Gmail and MS Office. You access Gmail through your web browser, and there's no local software to download. When Google releases a new feature or a bugfix or a security patch, there's no action required on your end. You're simply up to date the next time you connect. Contrast that with MS Office, which comes on a CD/DVD, requires a local install process, and needs to be constantly patched for features and security. All of the work to maintain that software falls to you, the end user.
- delano 16y ago
  Do you really use SFDC as shorthand for SalesForce.com or was that a riff?
  - novum 16y ago
    We use SFDC very widely internally, and I've also seen it occasionally on Twitter/FB.
  - ricardo 16y ago
    I've worked with a lot of Salesforce.com partners and customers and the acronym SFDC is universally used.
- ryanelkins 16y ago
  Perhaps some of the disconnect is that it's not easily explainable to non techie types without going in to more detail. The Gmail/Office example you gave holds true for any web app, regardless of it is hosted on Force.com, a $9/mo hosting plan, or a server I run out of my apartment. Computational power as a commodity resource is a little more in depth than most people probably care to go, but it leaves many with the impression that the internet is the cloud.
dstein 16y ago
Outsourced data center on a pay-per-use basis.
dgudkov 16y ago
IMO, cloud service is any service that a) scalable on demand, b)has ~100% uptime, c) require no maintenance from customer. It doesn't matter whether it is one server or 10000 servers - if it fits this model of consumption - it's cloud.
- whatusername 16y ago
  So cloud service is an outsourced mainframe? That's about the only thing that fits all 3.
  - dgudkov 16y ago
    Why not, say, youtube?
mathgladiator 16y ago
For me, it is the idea of outsourcing infrastructure and treating computers as a utility.
- keefe 16y ago
  yes, agree. I think this is the talk from startup school where bezos used this metaphor : http://wn.com/jeff_bezos_at_startup_school_08 http://wn.com/jeff_bezos_at_startup_school_08
rblion 16y ago
Optimist: Decentralized infrastructure that powers 21st century commerce and acts as an infinite storage space for personal files. Pessimist: Data Star (Earth's version of the Death Star) that will just become another way for more ads to find us where ever we go in space and in time...
Spoutingshite 16y ago
Seriously, after all these years aren't we past this repetitive question?
lnguyen 16y ago
The use of the term "the Cloud" is basically for anything that's not the traditional way of requesting and utilizing IT resources (aka rigid, pre-allocated, persistent and more than likely tied to physical systems). And that's probably why you're seeing so many different definitions. What I think "cloud" should mean is the combining of individual resources (computing, storage, etc.) into a large virtual pool that can be accessed and allocated dynamically. This can be done within a corporation's own set of servers and devices (private cloud) or by tapping into someone else's collection of resources (public cloud providers like Amazon, Azure, etc.).
- jnoller 16y ago
  Completely agreed; which is why "private cloud" isn't as an insane a term as you might initially suspect (as I did when I first heard it). If you have a global company, such as GE running it's own "private cloud" where CPU, Storage and platforms can be spun up by departments, users and others "on demand" and destroyed just as quickly, and it's distributed, fault-tolerant and modular in architecture - why should that not qualify as "cloud"?
g9 16y ago
A cloud is a visible mass of droplets of water or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. (c) wikipedia.
cies 16y ago
to me it means: computing power behind an api. so my scripts can manage the data center (by growing/shrinking resource usage)
acabal 16y ago
Whenever someone asks me what I think of cloud computing, I just reply with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o
technomancy 16y ago
"The cloud means replacing your ops team with a clip-art picture of a cloud--PROBLEM SOLVED." --Coda Hale
joey_bananas 16y ago
To me it means not being in control of my own data.
teyc 16y ago
Most people couldn't put their finger on exactly what Cloud is, but they don't realize they fail because they don't understand the True Nature of Cloud. A cloud is not Azure. It is not AWS. It is not Rackspace. A cloud is not definable by what it is, but by what it is not. Asking for a definition of a cloud, is like asking for the definitive IP Address of www.amazon.com. A cloud is a hand-wavy indirection, and abstraction of a compute or storage infrastructure. Each of the products you mentioned are not Cloud. They are manifestations of a cloud. But they are not the Cloud, as they are no longer abstract.
billswift 16y ago
There are already 33 comments here, and not a lot of agreement. "The Cloud" just seems to me to be more marketing sucker-bait, basically (Web 2.0)2.0, I wonder what they are going to call ((Web 2.0)2.0)2.0?
- jnoller 16y ago
  I'm biased; but I suspect that much like "Web 2.0" there is some truth to the "marketing". Web 2.0 saw the rise of user generated content, richer/leaner and more interactive websites and applications. I suspect the "cloud" trend will continue to allow us to abstract more of our computing resources, and make computing/application construction pieces more of a utility/commodity then they ever have been. So despite it being used a bit too much in marketing - I think there's some fire behind all the smoke, and dismissing it simply because marketing people are blowing it around a lot runs the risk of ignoring a major technological shift.
  - billswift 16y ago
    There is always some truth in effective marketing; like all good lies, it uses truth in the service of falsehood.
abraham 16y ago
The (generally) light fluffy things in the air that produce rain.
Goladus 16y ago
To me, a cloud is a distributed system of computing resources where the resources can be dynamically allocated with an API. A hosted application should be able to increase or decrease the available processors, memory, and disk without human intervention. Human oversight should be implemented at points where it makes sense for business and security, rather than at points dictated by the limitations of technology. This means a cloud should do be able to do significant automated management of DNS, networking, and provisioning of fundamental operating system details. The line between any classic distributed system or cluster and a 'cloud' is blurry, but generally speaking a cloud's API should be internet-compatible and capable of using commodity hardware to scale up with minimal (and preferably asynchronous) intervention from system administrators. As for 'The Cloud' -- currently I don't think there is 'The Cloud' the way there is 'The World Wide Web', but it's theoretically possible. Right now 'The Cloud' generally means 'A Public Cloud', which is a publicly available distributed system like the one I described above. A Virtual Private Hosting service is not a cloud, because allocation of resources typically involves a sales contract of some sort. But the service itself it might theoretically run on a cloud, and you can build a cloud out of VPSs.
deleted 16y ago
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konad 16y ago
I think it came from one of those network diagrams where you have : local server <> picture of a cloud <> remote user I now have to deal with management types who have read too many magazines wanting their data stored "in the cloud". The management of the company I share an office with is seriously thinking about moving all their email "into the cloud" because the person that was responsible for backup did it wrong and they lost some important emails. They now associate "in the cloud" with "reliable". They are paying for an expensive consultant to come in and tell them what to do.

jnoller 16y ago

I can't buy that "hosted apps" qualify as "cloud" - that means Hotmail, Yahoo mail and every single rich application on the internet, ever, qualifies as "cloud". We have a word for that - Internet. I think a much more apt - and something more applicable to SFDC, is anything which exposes "architectural resources" - such as Platform, Storage, or Compute as a service/hosted system is a much better, and cleaner a term then throwing applications built on cloud technology into the mix. The cloud is the dynamic, elastic, "on demand" of resources, not the utilization of those resources.

Goladus 16y ago
Sometimes in a casual conversation it is convenient shorthand to refer to a use of a hosted app as "on the cloud," even if technically speaking "hosted apps" don't qualify as "cloud." It means basically "running on a system where I don't have to care about administration of the computing resources," and hotmail certainly qualifies.
- jnoller 16y ago
  I don't know how much we disagree - except that using the term "cloud based" denotes that your infrastructure is "elsewhere" and your application rests on top of it. It does not, however, make your application "the cloud" - hosted applications are just that; hosted applications. Hotmail is not a cloud application, it might have a cloud back end, it might run on Azure, etc, etc but it's not "the cloud"
nl 16y ago
I can't buy that "hosted apps" qualify as "cloud" - that means Hotmail, Yahoo mail and every single rich application on the internet, ever, qualifies as "cloud". Yes. We have a word for that - Internet. You noticed that? :) I think a much more apt - and something more applicable to SFDC, is anything which exposes "architectural resources" - such as Platform, Storage, or Compute as a service/hosted system is a much better, and cleaner a term then throwing applications built on cloud technology into the mix. The cloud is the dynamic, elastic, "on demand" of resources, not the utilization of those resources. I think you are right, kind of. Developers talk about cloud computing, cloud storage etc to distinguish it from their traditional services. However, non-developers don't see it like that. They see "email" as a resource, and the ability to elastically grow their email service as making it "in the cloud".
- jnoller 16y ago
  Here's a thought I've been toying with since reading your reply: I think, as a term passed to non technical or lightly technical end-users, "the cloud" is largely useless. The cloud is not an "end user" feature except in the features that a cloud-based architecture might bring. Taking your example - end users should never hear about "the cloud" when discussing email. All they care about is a hosted application that "just works" - having it based "on the cloud" is uninteresting, except by the features it brings with it, which they reap the benefits of. So, maybe trying to use it when discussing things outside of mostly technical (IT personell, Devops folks, developers) is mostly useless except to denote a very specific (scalability, uptime) set of features and even then you're better off not talking about "the cloud" but the specific features, which are tangible to them.
  - nl 16y ago
    Many of the people who talk about "the cloud" and - perhaps more importantly - spend money on it are only quasi-technical. They are CIO's and managers in charge of purchasing an email solution. They know they need a "cloud strategy", and vendors are quite happy to tell them their solution is "cloud based" if it make them happy. So yes - it's mostly useless as a technical term.
    - jnoller 16y ago
      Actually, I was wondering the inverse - if using the cloud is only useful as a technical term rather then using it for some faceless/mindless strategy to a CIO or Manager. Take for example, cloud storage. I would not sell "the cloud" part to a person, rather, I would sell them the fact that it's hosted and highly reliable, infinitely scalable, pay as you go and cheap compared to a local storage cluster buildout. I wouldn't sell them the cloud part, as not all things in, on and around the cloud inherit all the features the cloud might bring (meaning, you can screw up an architecture no matter where it's implemented).
      - nl 16y ago
        What you are saying makes perfect sense. But unfortunately many times the people with the budget don't actually care about the features. The word "cloud" is important to them because their CEO read about it in a glossy magazine, so they need to be "cloud enabled" You need to be careful, though because sometimes "cloud" is seen as a negative. I've seen companies that state "We don't believe in the cloud and we have a purchasing policy that excludes any cloud based solutions" - but then you dig deeper and find how proud they are of the "hosted solution" they bought from a vendor because of the way they don't have to pay for capacity until they use it. Sigh.. (Advice for young players: Enterprise sales will kill your soul)