Cloud computing is dead.

Sigh... the term "cloud computing" never had a firm meaning. Or rather, the firm meaning was never what people (particularly those most excited about it) wanted it to be. Basically cloud computing came about like this:

1. Software designers, network guys and so on have long used a picture of a cloud to represent the internet, some wide area network, existing infrastructure that needs to be ignored for the purposes of "this discussion".

2. It became common to draw services inside the cloud, e.g. dns, webpages, and so on, or as simple boxes just off the cloud.

3. Naturally people started referring to stuff on the diagram as 'in the cloud'.

4. Someone decided to turn this vague thing into a real term for his services, since they tended to be digrammed "in the cloud", (s)he called it cloud computing.

5. The english language, doing its thing, caused a vague term to be applied vaguely to vague concepts but retain a kernel of meaning.

Now, cloud computing means what it always meant "can be drawn such that the thing I'm selling can be abstracted to a cloud". Seriously the reason so many different things are called cloud computing is the person calling it that has a particular view of what should be an abstracted infrastructure cloud. Looked at in this light it, the whole term has always been the same.

In 2001 a couple of my roomates where interns at IBM and worked on "grid" projects (which is a lost cousin of the cloud/utility/aaS family). One of them remarked how every time they had a meeting with multiple suits, and someone had to whiteboard what they were talking about, the internet was always a cloud. Like there was some unwritten rule passed on in oral visio training lore that the internet is a cloud.

Whenever I hear 'cloud computing' I know exactly what people mean. Its that fuzzy overlap zone between outsourcing and the internet that exists in management/executives mind as a code phrase for "someone elses problem".

I am so GD tired of "--- is dead" as the title of what amounts to a rant (seemingly quite factual in this case) based on what someone dislikes about the subject. Cloud Computing is not dead. At worst the media has in their usual bandwagon rush severally mislabeled things, but that has little to do with it being "dead". Is "Hacking" dead? The press in all flavors has gotten this one wrong almost from day one. But (and this is the important part) those who 'hack' know what is going on and continue accordingly. As do those who 'crack' <sigh>. I suspect there is not much to be done about blog-venting, but I do wish that while he condemns the media he realize that he is part of what he is condemning...

So, the article actually argues that a popular tech term "cloud" has become a buzzword (naturally) and so is overused. Well, duh.

Meanwhile cloud computing (being location-independent computing) is as strong as ever, and will remain so.

Something tells me a more appropriate title such as "Cloud Computing is an often misused term" would have gotten zero clicks.