Andrew Coates is an inspired Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia, who’s been using this water analogy to describe “the Microsoft platform” for some years. It’s a fantastic analogy, because water is something we all use everyday, the plumbing of which we now take for granted, at least in the developed world.
The platform is moving out of the company computer room, or data centre, and into what is now called, the Cloud!! Great big Utility like Datacentres, run by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and about 41 other vendors.
Of course, we’ve had computing as a service since the bureaux days of AOL and Compuserve days in the ‘80’s! (actually CompuServe was founded in 1969) And I was fortunate enough to lead the team which built Australia’s first Hosted Email and Office Application Service Provider Data Centre back in 2000! Then CWO a-Services (CWO = Cable & Wireless Optus).
Note: I was working for Compaq at the time, who built & hosted the solution. They merged with HP, whilst Optus went to SingTel. I see that in 2004 the hosting was taken over by IBM, and it was shut down a scant 18 months later.
But vendors would have us believe that “Cloud Computing” is something entirely new.
Nevertheless, I’ve seen Andrew deliver this analogy many times. Today I notice that he’s had it made into an animation. It’s short at 2 min 55, and very sweet. Succinctly explains why computing is moving (back) into the Cloud, and the opportunities for developers, businesses, and individuals to innovate.
Enjoy.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You young blokes should read history. Even CSIRAC was a shared computer, and so has shared computer resource been going ever since. IBM had a big bureau computer business that was hived off to Control Data in the ’60′s as part of what we would now call and anti-trust settlement.
Computing that is owned versus computing that is hosted will continue to oscilate back and forth, just like it has done for 40+ years. Issues of security, data ownership, control, accounting treatment of the cost/expense won’t be going away any time soon. Me, I’ll just enjoy watching the gentle swinging back and forth, and listen to the telling and retelling of old stories dressed up in new cloth.
Hey Andrew,
It’s been a while since anyone called me young
so thanks for that.
I think Cloud Computing is inevitable. I.e. in the Enterprise. I guess my question is, what happens to all the SysAdmins and Architects when everyone outsources their compute requirements to the big vendors? We only really ever needed them (us?) when PC’s, then Ethernet – hence distributed Client/Server computing – came along.
Cheers
Rog42