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(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 some

by 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.
- novum 16y ago
  Good point, and an important distinction to make for more technical audiences. Scalable, elastic pay-as-you-go architecture is a key attribute of cloud computing as well.
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".
rmc00 16y ago
If you don't mind, I'm curious to find out why you view the private cloud as un-cloud-like. I don't think the cloud is defined by where the service is hosted or even how the service is paid for. To me, cloud computing is defined by 3 big ideas. 1. Virtualization is key. I think the cloud is marked by a construction from dynamic pools of virtualized resources. 2. Instead of focusing on individual physical components, the cloud focuses on pools of compute resources. This seems to have led to higher priority for service delivery. 3. Finally, I think the cloud is defined by being convenient for the consumer instead of being convenient for the provider. Within those constraints, I usually call a cloud private if it is under the control of an enterprise IT organization, in a way similar to older systems. I think of the cloud as public if the provider is mostly in control instead of the tenants. With that definition of the private cloud in mind, the model offers a lot of advantages to larger IT departments. The private cloud allows IT teams to more quickly provision resources in support of business initiatives. It's also a better way to invest in IT infrastructure. The model is inherently scalable, which means that IT funds can be used to create value instead of keeping the lights on so to speak. Obviously, private clouds aren't for every IT organization, but I think the private cloud has merit. As organizations globalize and just generally get big, economies of scale can be leveraged internally to increase the quality of IT projects and services.
- jnoller 16y ago
  Exceedingly well put
- Goladus 16y ago
  I agree. A private cloud should also have a standard API, so that applications can be conveniently moved to a public cloud when it is secure and cost-effective to do so.
  - jnoller 16y ago
    There; I disagree - if there were a standard API for clouds I might agree - otherwise, it makes sense for internal clouds to adopt the API most convenient for the end-users of that API. Sadly, that might mean something like SOAP, which would make me sad.
auxbuss 16y ago
Your requirements describe a web-site. Nothing more. Also, your alternative explanations are very Microsoft/Windows focused. I find your definition of the cloud as very confusing and very limiting.

by novum 16y ago

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.

novum 16y ago
Good point, and an important distinction to make for more technical audiences. Scalable, elastic pay-as-you-go architecture is a key attribute of cloud computing as well.

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".

rmc00 16y ago

If you don't mind, I'm curious to find out why you view the private cloud as un-cloud-like. I don't think the cloud is defined by where the service is hosted or even how the service is paid for. To me, cloud computing is defined by 3 big ideas. 1. Virtualization is key. I think the cloud is marked by a construction from dynamic pools of virtualized resources. 2. Instead of focusing on individual physical components, the cloud focuses on pools of compute resources. This seems to have led to higher priority for service delivery. 3. Finally, I think the cloud is defined by being convenient for the consumer instead of being convenient for the provider. Within those constraints, I usually call a cloud private if it is under the control of an enterprise IT organization, in a way similar to older systems. I think of the cloud as public if the provider is mostly in control instead of the tenants. With that definition of the private cloud in mind, the model offers a lot of advantages to larger IT departments. The private cloud allows IT teams to more quickly provision resources in support of business initiatives. It's also a better way to invest in IT infrastructure. The model is inherently scalable, which means that IT funds can be used to create value instead of keeping the lights on so to speak. Obviously, private clouds aren't for every IT organization, but I think the private cloud has merit. As organizations globalize and just generally get big, economies of scale can be leveraged internally to increase the quality of IT projects and services.

jnoller 16y ago
Exceedingly well put
Goladus 16y ago
I agree. A private cloud should also have a standard API, so that applications can be conveniently moved to a public cloud when it is secure and cost-effective to do so.
- jnoller 16y ago
  There; I disagree - if there were a standard API for clouds I might agree - otherwise, it makes sense for internal clouds to adopt the API most convenient for the end-users of that API. Sadly, that might mean something like SOAP, which would make me sad.

auxbuss 16y ago

Your requirements describe a web-site. Nothing more. Also, your alternative explanations are very Microsoft/Windows focused. I find your definition of the cloud as very confusing and very limiting.