“The Cloud” is a term that is designed to cause person to nod their head, as if to say “Ah, Bach” and glance knowing at the speaker. It’s a catch all term that holds vast meaning for some and simple bewilderment of others. Like NFTs or Blockchain. Or tipping at Christmas time.
The simplest way to think of The Cloud is as “Someone Else’s Servers”. As a everyman or everywoman, all servers may be “Someone Else’s Servers” to you. But here is what I mean. The Cloud are servers that you, or your company, doesn’t own and haven’t invested money upfront to purchase.
In the olden days, like twenty or thirty years ago, when computing power was required to process large amounts of data or run an application or host a website, you or someone in your company had to purchase the iron and silica (the metal and chip) to run the processes. The server or servers may have been set up under someone’s desk, or in a back closet or room or even offsite in a data center where there were rows and rows of other servers with dedicated power and cooling. The important bit was that you owned the hardware. That was a capital expenditure, a CapEx cost that would require money be invested in the hardware and then personnel costs for the care and feeding of the hardware, specialists who knew what they were doing ot keep the operating systems up and running and updated and backed up and deal with any nasty business that might have come from a hacker or errant code.
When the internet took off, services started to be offered online by the industries that move our lives. Things like online banking, credit card servicing, online shopping, auctions, entertainment, early social media, dating and pornography were served up to any who could get online. These services were hosted on those servers in offices and data centers and owned by the companies providing the services.
Then about fifteen years ago there as a shift. Rather than purchasing the hardware and running the servers and the power and cooling themselves, large companies and small companies and even individuals started to use distributed computing “In The Cloud”. These were servers or portions of servers that were hosted in Amazon data centers and other independent providers data centers where there was no requirement for a large CapEx, initial investment in the hardware. There was no need to maintain or manage the servers, the power, the cooling or the storage of these Cloud instances. Services could be brought online or taken offline without a large investment of money and no need to amortize the costs over years to reap the maximum tax benefits of a large infrastructure investment.
Today, using Cloud based services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft’s Azure Platform or Google Cloud a developer or designer can bring up a complex set of services to manage end user websites, backend databases, security services and advanced mathematical formulas to run analysis or planning. An idea can go from thought to Minimum Viable Product – a product that can actually do something without a whole lot of bells and whistles but more than a proof of concept – in a matter of days or weeks. These services are designed to fit pieces together like Legos or building blocks to create great towering structures.
So why should we care? It’s easier to bring ideas and products to market – that’s good, right? It’s cheaper to bring things online – so that’s good, right?
There are three areas that we as end users should be aware of as more services move to Cloud Services. The first is security. Where is the data stored, is it stored properly, is it backed up (if you’re running your business on it) and who is responsible for the day-to-day tasks, the care and feeding that used ot be done by in house, hired professionals. It is easy to think that because the services are running in The Cloud and ’t’s not my server, I’m not responsible for it. Every Cloud provider has terms of service that you need to be aware of and recognize what is the provider’s responsibility, what is shared responsibility and what is ultimately your responsibility. Most Cloud providers do not take responsibility for the data on the servers, so it is up to you to secure it and back it up.
Second, with a widening gap of systems and services moving to the cloud and fewer in house specialty personnel to manage the systems, there is a skills gap that can affect a company’s ability to maintain full functionality. As noted, the day-to-day tasks can quickly be overlooked and that may lead to data loss or worse.
Finally, there is a real ecological impact to Cloud based services. These services are offered by companies that build vast data centers that require enormous amounts of cooling and power and can have a negative impact on the surrounding communities. In the age of social responsibility or the desire to have companies show social responsibility, this needs to be taken into account.
Cloud services are here, and the decentralization of the data center means that more services will be moving to the Cloud. It’s important to keep in mind, all of these will still run on a server, just someone else’s server. It’s your data and ultimately still your responsibility.
