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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"

by 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)

by jnoller 16y ago

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)