Chaos Program

Arguably the biggest buzzword in computing today is “cloud computing.” Other candidates include “real time web,” “social computing” and (my favorite) “monetization.” Briefly, cloud computing means deploying internet based applications and services in a way that abstracts hardware needs out so that dependence on any particular server is limited and adding more servers (or virtual servers) makes scaling relatively easy. The example of cloud computing I am personally most familiar with is Amazon Electronic Compute Cloud which hosts the web site I have been developing at my job (Trailmeme). There are numerous others.

A recent study reported at Dark Reading claims that adoption of cloud computing is being hampered by concerns about security. I think this at least somewhat misleading.

The article gives two numbers related to this. First, almost exactly half of companies are not using the cloud and do not plan to at this time. The second number is that half of those mention security as one of their reasons for not rushing to adopt cloud computing. The conclusion of the article is that security is a major concern in cloud computing. I wish this were true but I don’t believe it.

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Thanks to my job at Xerox, I had the fun and interesting experience the other day of answering some questions emailed to me by Amanda Morin, half of the Ruby team at About.com. This is new stuff to me. Some of the questions made me feel like I was doing a midterm in grad school! But the end result is not too bad, though she (probably wisely) cut my comment about scaling Java in comparison to Ruby (anyone who knows me, knows I’m other than a fan of Java).

The basic questions were about Ruby and about Cloud Computing. What do you know but 2 days after answering all those questions, I run across an article that states the obvious but little thought of idea that cloud computing may be a new thing for business but it’s old news for cyber criminals. What do you think a botnet is but a resource cloud? Wish I had seen it before! Oh well, check out the article Botnets and illicit file swapping: the original “cloud computing” and an older take at Cloud Computing: Invented By Criminals, Secured By ???

In addition to interviewing me, Amanda interviewed Hampton Catlin, who (unlike me) really knows what he’s talking about. There’s a series of articles on the subject. Go see the articles. Learn something and make it look like someone out there has an interest in what I have to say (It’s okay to pretend).

Interviews with me

• Cloud Computing and Ruby: Interviewing Dave Vandervort
• What is Cloud Computing? Interviewing Dave Vandervort of Xerox Innovation Group

Other bits of the series (also interesting, though not as much):

• What is Cloud Computing
• Cloud Computing and Ruby: Interviewing Hampton Catlin

updates

3/25/2009: Fixed bad link on “What is Cloud Computing” That was mistakenly pointing to the Hampton Catlin interview.