I recently led a panel discussion for SYS-CON.TV on the topic of “Cloud Computing 2.0,” a term I decided to employ just a few minutes before we started recording.
A few years ago, any right-minded person would wince at the use of “2.0” to describe anything, as it had long become a meaningless cliché.
So I don’t know if I was being ironic, too clever by half, or just tedious when I told the panelists that we’d go with the topic of Cloud Computing 2.0.
The Debate Evolves
My point was, and is, that the discussion about cloud computing has notably changed this year.
Three years ago, the debate was how to define cloud, whether virtualization alone was enough to fit the definision, whether an on-site datacenter could even fit the definition of cloud, and to what degree the big-vendor latecomers were engaged in cloud washing.
A couple of years ago, the chief debate was over public vs. private cloud. Last year and into the start of 2014, I heard and read endless discussion of PaaS vs. IaaS, whether the former had simply become part of the latter, and so forth.
All of those debates seem a little quaint to me now. Not that these specific issues can, and must, come up within any enterprise of any size when considering, defining, designing, and deploying its cloud strategies. The world is a hybrid, and XaaS is what you make of it. To me, the big issue today is the integration of cloud, Big Data, and the IoT.
If you’re not talking about Big Data and the Internet of Things today, you’re not talking about cloud computing. Also, you’ve fallen down and you may not be able to get up.
Ulcer Time
Just creating a catalog of all the data within an organization (of any size), trying to predict dataflows for the next few years, and (gasp) trying to conduct any sort of rational capacity planning is an ulcer-inducing task that I wish on no one but realize is being experienced by everyone in this industry.
Ergo, Cloud Computing 2.0. Somebody asked the question at the recent Cloud Expo in New York when we would start hearing the term “legacy cloud.” The comment was meant in jest.
But it’s no joke. Yesterday’s cloud discussions are not today’s cloud discussions. With all of the major technology vendors pushing hard on their IoT strategies, with numerous start-ups focusing on Big Data and its accompanying analytics, and with longstanding debates about Open Source vs. proprietary continuing, I fear an analysis paralysis by many organizations in this new cloud era.
You Will Submit!
I’m in the midst of working with a very sophisticated team of people to put together the upcoming Cloud Expo in Santa Clara November 4-6—with co-located events focused on Big Data, the IoT, SDDX, DevOps, and WebRTC. We are addressing the very thorny and serious issues that face enterprise IT today.
Submissions to the conference remain open, as does my Twitter account for any comment and perspective. I welcome not only technical opinions and harangues, but also specific use cases that highlight how things have been done, either well or badly, in this age of Cloud Computing 2.0.