Is Cloud All Hype?

To say that Cloud is "just" hype and SOA is "dead" is fairly typical hyperbole. The Gartner Hype Cycle does a great job helping people understand the lifecycle.

Ken Kesey once said that while driving a bus, it's never the thing in the road that kills you, it's your overreaction to it.

Similarly, both the peak and the trough of the hype cycle are worth understanding.

The good news is that SOA is climbing "slope of enlightenment" and that the positive momentum around Cloud is spawning a lot of innovation. Good to be thankful about both the adolescent and the old man in the room.

My 2 cents,
Miko

Cloud computing has not only captured the attention of the press and industry analysts, but also IT and business decision-makers from organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry because it represents a compelling solution to the escalating demands they are facing. But, even more importantly, cloud computing is delivering tangible and measurable business benefits to a widening array of users. As a result, cloud computing is clearly demonstrating its real value as opposed to simply offering theoretical promises. Therefore, cloud computing is not going to follow the same hype-cycle which beset the dot.com era.

I'll take Jeff's comment a bit further. It is no surprising news that Cloud hype is at the peak. What might be less visible is the adoption of the architecture behind it, sometimes referred to as “private cloud�. In this I relate first of all to the ubiquitous and pervasive availability of business applications – of any level of complexity and UI richness. I think that the Cloud aspect of on-demand computing infrastructure took the front-stage of the hype because it is easy to understand and tangible – a real asset. It will take quite some time until it substitutes in-house computing resources, and it is unclear to what extent. But the Software aspect is penetrating at a fast pace, both in the form of SaaS and in the form of Rich Internet Business Application

I posted on this subject to my blog: Cloud Hype Heralds SOA's Heyday. My view is that the relative positions of SOA and cloud in the hype cycle make for an interesting juxtaposition. I'd argue that cloud is in effect the fruition of SOA -- and once people learn to use cloud effectively, as they have started to do with SOA, it too will prove to be a very important and useful technology.

As Phil observed in his latest post (BTW, thanks for the callout, Phil) Cloud is at the top of the Gartner hype cycle.

It's not fair to say that cloud "is all hype," because it is a legitimate technology strategy. But it is fair to say that it is being hyped way beyond its ability to deliver. Someone said that when the dust settles (I guess after cloud drops into the "trough of disillusionment" and begins to climb up the "slope of enlightenment"), cloud will be a strategy for some aspects of IT, and will take its place along on-site approaches in a larger strategy. There will be synergy between the two approaches. (Sorry for using the word "synergy")

There is a fundamentally serious issue surrounding cloud computing beyond the relatively vapid question of whether or not it is hype. There are two issues here:

1) Who has my data (and responsibility for it)?
2) How do I get access to the application that is running it?

These questions become truly important when your sizzling hot cloud computing company of today withers and dies tomorrow.

There is not nearly enough media attention being paid to the lessons that we should be learning from the wreckage being left behind when these cloud computing companies go bust. In my company's particular space (workflow & BPM), there was a company called coghead that went off the air literally overnight and left its customers totally stranded. Try and visit their website today and you will see a message saying "you have reached a non existent page." But earlier this year, this company was being touted as the next great PaaS/cloud computing company.

Those on the service were left high and dry. If they were given time to migrate their data - where would they migrate it to? They didn't have access to the application so they were stuck.

There is a simple answer - Open Source + Cloud Computing. It is the only thing that makes sense unless somewhere in the Terms of Service you see a clause which says that if your provider for whatever reasons ceases to offer its service, or raises its price, or does anything to irk you; they will be forced to give you a copy of the code they are running. That would work as well.

Anyone who gives their data to a cloud provider offering some great new application building PaaS software and does not have access to the code to run locally and make modifications if necessary, will eventually regret it.

I am just surprised at how many pundits are completely missing this point.

I would say that it may take time for it to mature, but it is not just hype. Cloud is a next step of web hosting. Once upon a time each company had its own servers. Next came the hosting data centers and now the cloud servers.
I could say the same for other cloud related topic like SaaS, PaaS etc.

Noam

Cloud computing is not all hype. There are real cost and time savings for businesses. www.workxpress.com

The critical word in your question is "all". Is there hype...way more than there needs to be? Absolutely. But can cloud computing be transformational to IT and businesses in general? Yes.

So no, it isn't all hype

Cloud Computing is definitely not just all hype. Are there unreal expectations related to the "cloud"? Sure, there are, which is not unlike with any other "star" technology such as SOA. The "tending to infinity" number of definitions of a cloud is not helping; nor are all the vendors scrambling to reposition their products and services as being what "cloud" is all about. But, when you cut through whatever hype there is and dispel the myths you end up with a business and technology model that is rooted in best practices and a solid track record. The underpinnings of cloud are not new. Virtualization, SOA, Utility and Grid Computing, and the various "-as-a-platforms" have been around in one form or another for a while; each with success stories of its own. Keeping that in mind, "cloud" is simply the next stage in the continuing maturity evolution of our use of technology to achieve business goals in the most efficient and cost effective manner. Cloud Computing is definitely real and is here to stay for the long haul.