Cloud Computing: The Language of the Cloud

By Dick Weisinger

Every business has its own jargon, and high tech is far from the exception. High tech is an example of an industry that maximizes its use of jargon and acronyms. Research analysts at Forrester in their TechRadar report series try to make sense of the evolving high-tech world.

Forrester sees the trend towards the cloud as inevitable and recommends that IT shops not necessarily jump fully into the cloud right now, but instead try to ‘right-source’ their app deployment strategy, adopting cloud services only when it provides the best option.

Forrester says that one problem with Cloud Computing today is that there is no one clear definition of what it is. Larry Ellison already blasted cloud computing last year as ill-defined. He said that:
“The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve defined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?”

“Forrester defines cloud computing as a standardized IT capability (services, software, or infrastructure) delivered via internet technologies in a pay-per-use, self-service way.”

A recent TechRadar report dives into Cloud Computing and breaks the concept of cloud services into a total of 11 service categories that fall into three classes of cloud services. Forrester’s three classes of Cloud Services are:

1) Software you Rent
2) Infrastructure middleware services on which vendors/developers can build cloud applications
3) infrastructure services and platforms where cloud applications can be deployed

Daniel Kusnetsky of the 451 Group agrees with Forrester saying that there are three classes of cloud computing, even though his list is different:

1) Software as a Service (SaaS)
2) Platform as a Service (PaaS)
3) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Well, at least there is agreement that people need to come to a common agreement on what Cloud Computing really is.