Cloud 2.0: Sieve or Sponge?

David Tow, noted resident of the penal colony currently described on maps as 'Australia', suggests that Cloud 2.0 is "strategically porous".

If I understand his road-train of thought, he suggests this is an improvement over Cloud 1.0, which is simply a "metaphor". However, the more anthropomorphic Cloud 2.0 is also capable of the following verbs: blend, split, fragment, share, leverage, and discover.

Most incredibly, Mr. Tow (presumably unrelated to Tow-Mater) gives no credit to this Cloud 2.0 blog for sparking the second generation of Cloud Computing.

Since HP and RIM announced Cloud (1.0) Print a year ago, I've been anxiously looking forward to using my Blackberry to spew hardcopy to anyone's printer.
Obviously the fun will be in using other people's printer without their permission. But that's OK, since Cloud 1.0 all about...uh, using more printer ink, I guess.

Why the Cloud Rewards Tires and Pee

According to urban legend -- two rungs up on the trustworthiness scale over the Internet -- a music critic musing Elvis Presley's death pronounced it "a good career move."

I respect people with that kind of foresight. While the rest of us are tip-toeing toward the second step of grief, they've already graduated and have signed a contract to publish a Dummies handbook for the rest of us.

For example, when eBay went big, everyone rushed to empty their attics of 20-year-old baseball cards in the hope they'd strike it rich. Those with true foresight instead invested in Goodyear. Why? eBay caused a billion people to parcel post fifty billion 5-pound packages. Mail trucks careened down any strip of asphalt more than 4 feet wide to deliver those goodies. And all those trucks used lots and lots of tires. Goodyear tires. ebay sellers got $1. ebay buyers got baseball cards. Goodyear got a 150% boost to revenue.

So who wins with the Cloud 1.0? That's simple. Baxter Medical.

Who, you might ask? The Cloud 1.0 relevant product they make is the sterile specimen cup. Y'know, when the nurse hands you the plastic jar and sends you to the bathroom for "the sample".

Why will Cloud 1.0 cause the need for pee containers to skyrocket?

Cloud 1.0 rhetoric convinces CEOs that they don't have the right skillset on their staff. They tell HR to find Cloud-qualified people. Those job seekers interview in droves, and are sent off to the doc-in-a-box for pre-employment drug screening. That way the CEO knows their crazy ideas about computing come from imagination, not mushrooms. So a million nurses call up Baxter asking for more specimen cups.

Those in the know about Cloud 1.0 know it's all about the pee.

Gartner: Wait, did we say 7 years?

Gartner's gone Private.

Well, when it comes to Cloud 1.0 computing, that is. But not all Gartner-ites have read the memo.

Gartner defines Cloud 1.0 as "a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies."

And if you don't like that definition...well, get over it, they say.

Since Gartner's competitors in the IT think-tank market are now turing to 15-year-olds for insight, I'm comfortable with Gartner's definition.

Actually, this is just their most recent defintion. Last year, Gartner defined it slightly differently. Back then, Clouds had to be "massive". Not anymore, they say. (I suspect that's because Gartner staffers couldn't couldn't get management to sign off on iPhones as Cloud research expenses if only "massive" things were included.)

They also dropped the need for a Cloud to service multiple customers. Just one is fine now.

No longer massive...Servicing just one customer...Hmm, all Gartner really did was shift their focus away from public clouds to private clouds. After all, "Private" is the new Cloud 1.0 buzzword.

Of course, there are detractors. Thomas Bittman, the same guy who invites you to "get over it" if you don't like Gartner's definition, admits that he doesn't like it too well either. He says private Clouds are just a placeholder , presumably until Apple releases iClouds.

Anyhoo, it looks like Gartner did send everyone the wrong Outlook reminder about buying Clouds. In February, Gartner predicted that the Cloud would be ready for mainstream adoption in precisely 7 years. Four months later, their June report said mainstream adoption would commence...immediately.

Want Cloud 1.0? Gartner says grab your checkbook, it's time to buy. Unless you're paying with PayPal, in which case you might have to wait 7 years.

Uptime Up There

Microsoft opened a window today to let Cloud 1.0 seep in a little.

How much does a Microsoft Cloud cost? Renting computer time from Redmond will set you back about 12 cents an hour. Twelve cents an hour, times 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for one year will set you back...exactly the price of a Windows Vista license. (Coincidence? No, as I've talked about before, coincidences don't happen with Cloud 1.0 technologies. )

That's not the big news, though. Microsoft took the opportunity to reveal their planned Service Level Agreements while at their Partner Confab in New Orleans -- a city well known for its fault-tolerance.

What uptime promise will Microsoft give you? Well, as long as you load your apps in more than one place -- none of them being Poland -- they promise that 99% of the time, both places won't simultaneously lose their Internet connections.

Wait, did you want a promise about application uptime? Well, as Steve Balmer said, "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Or was that Darth Vader? I can't remember. Maybe I need to go bing that.

Shocking

Mother Earth has signaled her displeasure with Cloud 1.0.