One of the biggest paradigm shifts of the hosting industry was the introduction of the ‘cloud’ phenomenon. Anything can now be offered in the cloud: Email in the cloud? Check. Websites in the cloud? Check. Music in the cloud? Check. Chicken cutlets in the cloud? Not yet.
As with any phenomenon - ‘the cloud’ requires no formal explanation, just a socially accepted definition. However, when dealing with IT infrastructure on a daily basis - both physical and virtual, I’ve found that nearly everyone raves unnecessarily about the cloud. Out of that group, a slim percentage of those people actually know it’s strengths, weaknesses - and most importantly, how it works.
What is a cloud?
In it’s simplest definition: A cloud is a distributed and redundant system to allow separation and scalability of processing power, network throughput, and storage capacity.
Why is it called the cloud?
I honestly couldn’t tell you. Clouds can be any size, can grow or shrink at any time, and can morph into any shape - my guess would be the flexibility aspect.
Are all clouds the same?
Not at all. All clouds tend to share the same intentions: 100% uptime, complete redundancy. The technology that it takes to achieve those intentions varies grossly by the type of service you’re providing. Rarely do end-users purchase ‘turnkey clouds’ - they purchase a service that is located ‘in-the-cloud’.
Is my information safe in the cloud?
The truth of the matter is that your information is just as ‘exposed’ in the cloud as it is on any traditional distributed system. Cloud architecture does not impact the security of your data from outside intruders, it only attempts to minimize or ‘eliminate’ (used in quotes because it’s simply impossible) the inaccessibility or loss of data. Cloud architecture only factors in hardware failure - it is not a save-all solution.
How do I know if my provider is in the cloud?
Any provider can advertise that they use cloud architecture, to the end user - cloud or no-cloud looks all the same. Your website loads in the browser, your files download, and you receive your email.
So what does one look like?
Just like: this. A cloud can contain three servers, or three hundred servers. Again - going back to my earlier point, clouds are developed with a service in mind. If your cloud is designed to host websites, you have a relatively proportionate amount of processing - disk space - throughput, whereas if your cloud is to store files, you’ll have low processing power, massive disk space and high throughput.
Do I need to be in the cloud?
Check out my next blog post - coming soon - and you’ll find out.
