Cloud Computing and The Terminator

By Jim Machi, Dialogic

In a recent blog, I explained why the concept of Cloud Computing has taken hold now and what’s involved from a technical and non-technical standpoint. Moving to the cloud sounds so easy, so all companies should just do this, right?

Wrong. There are plenty of CIOs out there who say, “We aren’t ready for this yet.” And providers should respect these perspectives. Concerns linger about the outsourcing of key data by IT departments, and whether that data will safe. That’s why I say it’s not absolutely given that the march of cloud computing is inexorable.

The first successful hosting apps that I remember were really outsourcing and hosting of the Web site. Security of key data wasn’t as big an issue since, well, what you’re putting on the Web is for all to see. Let’s take a basic enterprise application, such as voice mail. Is voice mail something that should be totally secure? It’s not something for me to answer since it depends on your company, on your job, and on who is leaving you voice mail. We’ve seen some famous people recently who wished voice mail didn’t become public.

So let’s look at the data you have on premise in your office. Is the data there really more secure than in some big hosted “cloud” facility? That’s also hard to say, as it likely depends on each specific facility. I have read many instances in the newspaper relating to break-ins at some office where computers are stolen, and on those computers are employee social security numbers and the like. Data is not automatically more secure on your premises. On the other hand, when Los Angeles decided to move its e-mail to Google, the city government faced criticism due to security concerns.

Additionally, there are still issues to be worked regarding interoperability. If you create an application using infrastructure-as-a-service, and you call on some remotely hosted “function,” what if that company goes out of business and the function disappears? What if some other function suddenly replaces it out of the blue, but it’s not exactly the same? All of a sudden, your application may not work, or may not work as it used it.

With regards to uptime, if you are sharing a computer system through virtualization with other applications, or simply being in a facility and the facility has power issues, someone else’s problem may affect you. So it’s not all nirvana.

Finally, harking back to The Terminator movies, Skynet is the epitome of cloud computing. From software-as-a-service to machine-to-machine computing to thinking machines to machines-as-a-service, The Terminator movies show a possible ending to all this cloud computing. The cloud gets smart and the cloud wants to be the run things.

My point is, there will always be good reasons for people to use Cloud Computing, and there are always going to be good reasons for people to use premises-based computing. As time goes on, though, many of the concerns over cloud computing will, uhh, evaporate. It’s certainly more of an option now than it was five years ago, and it will be even more of an option in five years than it is today.

Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic, responsible for product planning, product management and marketing. Dialogic develops open systems-based telephony voice, video and signaling products for both the enterprise and service provider market segments.