2009/05/08

newspeak strikes again...

Frankly, the amount of hype surrounding the "cloud" thing is reaching the limits of what is acceptable by anyone with half a brain and a working mind!


If anything, it is only discrediting the architecture and reducing it to yet another "j2ee" scam.


I recently found this in one of the blog feeds.


“Private, on-premise clouds are also an option that that may lessen security-related concerns”

I beg your pardon? Isn't that what the term "Data Centre" is used for? Now we call Data Centres "private, on-premise clouds"?

Exactly and precisely what is the difference between the two?



What, we are now going to rename every single piece of technology in IT and resell it to the punters under the patina of "new"?



Inovation is one (desirable) thing. Utter marketing nonsense is a completely different one.



Quite frankly: anyone waltzing in to our IT department with the line of argument above would get the tar and feathers treatment...



And then they call me contrarian...

This level of promotion of a new architecture is an insult to the intelligence of any normal human being! I have to be a contrarian!



Anyways: just thought I'd leave my comment on this before it gets wiped out of my feeble memory.

I actually bounced it off a few other folks I highly respect, just to make sure I wasn't mis-reading the whole thing.

The unanimous reaction was along the lines of: "that is a joke, right?"



Ah well...




Anyways...


On to some lighter stuff.



I often go walking or biking around here. It's the council walkway across Warriewood wetlands.
Funny name, that one: "wetlands". Back in the 60s, we'd have called it swamp and called in the bulldozers.
Now?
We build walkways across it and actually enjoy the place.
Great how attitudes have evolved!

There, we find precious jewels such as these:



These guys show up regularly in the branches of small casuarina trees. They are gorgeous creatures, all 2cms of them!


Of course, they have to be careful:



;)


Catchyalata, folks!

12 Comments:

Blogger Tim... said...

Hi.

The onsite-cloud thing is a little different to a data center. You would use virtualization to build a cloud environment, so machines can be turned on/off, cloned, expanded within the cloud as resources required. I guess it's more like "proper" grid computing.

But I have to agree it's a buzz gone too far. One of the points of cloud computing is you don't have to invest upfront. You just pay for what you need and expand as your requirement expands. If you have to build a data center to do an onsite cloud you are losing that aspect.

I've done a little work with Oracle on Amazon's cloud offering. You know what it's like? Just like any other Oracle installation I've done. It's just a bunch of VMs for God's sake, but a little less stable than using your own hardware to do it. :)

It's all the same but different. :)

Cheers

Tim...

Friday, May 08, 2009 10:24:00 am  
Blogger SydOracle said...

What I hate about the 'cloud' term is how it softly covers both the Amazon Web Services style Platform-as-a-service and the GMail/Docs.. style Software-as-a-service.

I simply don't see that the two have enough in common to need a single term combining them.

PS. I think "private on-premise clouds" is as much VM as DataCentre. Can I dub my laptop as a 'personal cloud device' ?

PPS. I think swamp became wetlands about the same time jungles became rainforests.

Friday, May 08, 2009 11:13:00 am  
Blogger Noons said...

Yeah, sure.

But what allows folks to turn machines on/off, clone, etc, is the virtualization.

VM is not cloud. Cloud uses VM, and that is OK with me.

But "private, on-premise cloud"?
C'mon! It's a Data Centre, ferchrissakes!

Like you said: it's all the same but different! :)

Friday, May 08, 2009 11:13:00 am  
Anonymous Carl Brooks said...

Hola,

you might be interested to read about a chat I had with Rich Wolski, a cloud guy, relevant to this topic:

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cloud-computing/

he thinks there's a fundamental difference between running a data center and running a cloud.

Carl

Friday, May 08, 2009 11:46:00 pm  
Blogger Noons said...

Good points in your article, Carl.

I still think Wolski has one too many clouds in his mind: virtualization is a fence, then it's a lubricating oil? Please!

Virtualization is virtualization. Period.

Giving it meanings to suit the occasioon is simply and succintly, newspeak.

I do like your final point very much. That is precisely and uniquely what it is: commodity commerce.

Remains to be seen if that is applicable to everyone. Amazon has server resources to sell away. Most IT shops don't. And the security angle is simply something that can't be ignored, derided or simply forgotten.

We shall see. Thanks for your feedback.

Saturday, May 09, 2009 9:56:00 am  
Blogger Alex Gorbachev said...

Not much to add to the private clouds nonesence.

I recognize that froggie... :) We have recently paid another visit there but couldn't find those little creatures anymore -- either they moved after few months we couldn't find the right bushes without you.

Monday, May 11, 2009 9:25:00 am  
Blogger Noons said...

They go away when the weather cools off in April/May. I'd love to know were but haven't yet managed to figure out. I reckon they go back into the water as it is warmer than the cold windy branches.

They'll be back around September, once the days start to get warmer.

A sure sign is when you go past one of those trees and you see what looks like bubbles hanging off a branch or twig.

That's where they keep the eggs, the young hatch and drop off into the water under the tree. They then swim back and climb up.

And the whole cycle starts again.
Interesting little buggers. Been following them now for 4 years.

Monday, May 11, 2009 2:23:00 pm  
Blogger Joel Garry said...

Well, I also have a generally darky-cloudy view of cloudliness, but this guy has made some good bets. It is an easy sell making everything available through browsers.

Here's an interesting place near me (now open, but funny story.)

word: bants
word: sestoo

Friday, May 15, 2009 9:41:00 am  
Blogger Noons said...

@jgar:

Thanks, Joel. Yeah sure. But:

"The concept gets its name from the idea that data and software are out there in locations – in the clouds – irrelevant to end users."

Errrr........ sorry Andy, but the data and software have been irrelevant to end users for the last 20 years, why exactly is that great news with cloud?

and:

"Bechtolsheim believes it will lead to strong growth for companies, such as his latest startup Arista Networks, which makes switching technology or “the plumbing behind the cloud,” he said."

Of course it will lead to strong growth with the *providers* of cloud! Tell me something new?
I mean: the promoters of a new idea get strong growth, that is supposed to justify and confirm the technology as valid?

Andy has been on the clouds for so long he's now seeing everything through the newspeak glasses.


I do recall the "network is the computer" mantra of one of his spawn. Yeah, sure. See how far it has taken them: takeover city...

Of course: he personally benefitted from that. There is however a loooong distance between him and the end users.

Friday, May 15, 2009 10:22:00 am  
Blogger Joel Garry said...

Of course I'm with you on most of this stuff, but yeah, strong growth is its own justification. You get both economy of scale and a bandwagon effect, at some point you magically have infrastructure rather than gee-whiz technoweenie stuff. The stuff that gets lost in translation only bothers us old curmudgeons. Remember telephones, Nellie? They'd work even if the utility power was out, unless specific lines were blown down. Now my regional utility wants to turn off power under fire-prone conditions - which will break cellphones, medical devices, fire-department and municipal water, internet, and any landline phone systems without long lasting backup power...

word: conthr

Saturday, May 23, 2009 10:03:00 am  
Blogger Noons said...

Good heavens above!
What next, they'll want us to use satellite links during fire emergency blackouts?

Sunday, May 24, 2009 10:24:00 pm  
Blogger obakesan said...

dude

let me introduce you to an essential TLA (Three Letter Acronym)

EWV = Extra Wank Value

with all your experience in IT and brochure language I'm sure you'll already know it ;-)

Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:26:00 am  

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