The fog is lifting

With all this talk about clouds, and the new Dell global research center for cloud computing opening here in Ireland, it's time to figure out what cloud computing is all about. It's a term that has floated around in computing for a few years now, but really seems to be gathering momentum of late. 

Getting to grips with the ideology brought to mind my first iPod and bringing it home to show it to my mother.  She could not understand how all my CDs were on this tiny machine. I tried to explain it was a high capacity hard drive, but she just smiled and said she was too old to figure out modern technology.  Fast forward a couple of years and she is addicted to the latest 'Angry Birds' app on her own little gizmo.  That's the crazy thing about IT, alot of the time you really don't need to understand how things work, but once you get used to a new concept it sort of becomes the norm and you just accept it and don't question it any more.
 
At it's most basic cloud computing is just a different way of storage.  Right now we are all used to having our own hard drives.  But the difference now will be that we will have an area on the interweb where all our data is stored and we can log into it from any country or device and access all our files.  A bit like a hotmail/google account really, but you can store eveything, email, photos, music, films, depending on the size you go for.  And no matter where you login from you will see your own customised desktop.

In practise all companies will be able to sync everything in these clouds, from databases to accounting packages, and according to all the blurb it should be possible to run packages such as Talis and the library catalogue in a cloud like a big virtual server.  (IT departments across the globe shudder at what that will entail!!)

In theory it does sound advantageous, as you don't need to worry about backing up data anymore.    Personally I have two big concerns, privacy of data, and threat of hacking from an external source.  What happens if the clouds get hacked? How safe and/or private is your information?   I guess these are the things that everyone will worry about so they will have to iron them out before it takes off. 

An additional concern is, what does it mean in terms of streaming data.  In terms of dropbox and torrents, how will these be monitored and does it mean your cloud can be randomly searched?  Is it really safe to hold all your music/films in it?  I am a bit sceptical about the intentions of this longterm.  Is it going to be a way of finally stopping file sharing and music/film swapping?  Or am I just being paranoid?  Could it be that these multi billion dollar organisations are benevolently trying to make our lives easier with no ulterior motive. Interesting times ahead for sure!

All this cloud talk makes me yearn for a time when life was simpler and they were just little balls of fluff that billowed across the sky.