Cloud Computing for Dummies... What is Cloud Computing?
How to Explain Cloud Computing and Hosted Email Archiving to the Computer Illiterate.
Over the holidays, you will do a lot of catching up with old friends and family, and if you work anywhere near "the Cloud" (which you should if your business uses computers), then you might find yourself trying to explain "the Cloud" to the technologically ungifted. Even people who work with "the Cloud" have a hard time explaining it to colleagues. I attended the America's Growth Capital 6th Annual East Coast Emerging Growth Conference back in October, and the moderator for the "Virtualization and Cloud Computing Panel" asked the industry experts to "define the cloud because I am sure not everybody in here really understands what it is."
(If I remember correctly) Michael Crandell from RightScale answered first, "Well I don't think anybody really knows how to define the cloud." Nobody on the panel, which included CEOs and Vice Presidents from emerging Virtualization and Cloud Computing companies such as Akorri, Fortisphere, LeoStream, and Silver Peak Systems, could disagree with him. I am not saying that these people aren't at the top of their game, I am simply showing that the idea of cloud-computing is so new, and evolving so rapidly that even industry leaders who are creating the very "cloud" above us have difficulty defining "it." So does this mean you should just give up trying to explain "the Cloud?" When your brother-in-law asks "what are you doing these days?" should you just tell him that you "make it rain" instead of getting into the complexities of a Web 2.0 profession? The answer is no, you should not.
I have devised a simple analogy for "the Cloud" that even your (great) grandparents could understand. I know this because I used this analogy when, over Thanksgiving, my grandparents asked me, "What are you working on these days."
-where do you think I got the idea for this blog post?
How I Explained Cloud Computing To My Grandmother:
Nana,
Cloud Computing is the idea that you will be able to access all of your work, from anywhere, on any computer with an internet connection.
For example, what we do at Sonian is Email archiving. So we archive your email to the cloud. What is email? Email is electronic Mail. So it is just like the mail the postman brings you, only through the computer. For the purpose of this analogy, suppose email is mail brought to you by the postman. You follow me, Nana?
And what we do is store that mail so you can access it anywhere from anytime. In the case of our analogy, this means that instead of storing all your old mail in a big pile in the basement, you store it in a helicopter that follows you wherever you go - CloudCopter. Yes, Nana, a helicopter just like Jim flew in the war.
And the beauty of it, Nana, is that if you ever want to find an old email - excuse me - if you ever want to find an old letter, then you just tell the, we'll call them, CloudCrew what you need and they bring it right to you. Anywhere in the world. Even if you are at your timeshare in Florida:
And if your house burns down, CloudCopter has your letters stored safely in the sky. Perhaps even high enough to say that they are being stored in... "the Clouds."
To recap, Nana: At Sonian, the email we archive is like the letters you keep in laundry bins in the basement. And "the Cloud" we archive them to would be like storing your old letters in a lightning-fast super helicopter that has infinite storage space that you can access anywhere.
I could go on to talk about how operating CloudCopter miraculously costs less than storing her letters in the basement but Nana is asleep, and I think she is drooling a little bit.
So if you are confused, just remember: Cloud Computing is like a super lightning helicopter - called the CloudCopter - operated by a team of ninja-fast mail dudes called the CloudCrew. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at alec@sonian.net.
*Photos courtesy of cbc.ca, corbisimages.com, and minihelicopter.net