The Cloud

I'm a day behind, but it will make some sense in a moment. It has been great spending a couple of days in Dallas. I just got back from visiting my son and his girlfriend. She is really sweet and hopefully my son is smart enough to keep her around. But I didn't want to focus on the people I have seen, but on an observation. While I was driving back on the Bush Turnpike, I notice a truck next me. It was just a regular Ford F150, simple and white with one of the magnets on the side.

The magnet was for cloud service. Now, this got me thinking. What does cloud service need with a pickup truck? I really tried to figure it out. But before I dig into cloud service, I probably should explain what it is. Yet at the same time, I'm sure most everyone is aware of it if you do anything with the computer.

The cloud is nothing more than a bunch of remote servers owned by another company storing your data. This data should be easily accessible as if the storage drive is connected to your computer. The one almost everyone is familiar with is DropBox, but there are many variants of this and I will probably get into some those in a later blog. I think I remember hearing one of the concept inventors in an interview that they wished another name would have been chosen (there is a similar story about the mouse). But he was looking for a 'technical' term, like remote data internetwork storage… I'm kind of glad that marketing won out in the name. How many of us remember the laptop card PCMCIA, this is why technologist shouldn't be naming things used by the masses.

So back to the truck. I understand that there is a large group of servers. These servers need to be run by people. I've designed data centers, so I know 40,000sf of servers can be run by a dozen people, maybe even more today. But a truck is not going to get your data at your office or home and drive it to the cloud. A cloud service is not going to stop by and hook you up to the cloud. I think I've struggled with the idea of what the truck was for a couple of miles. Maybe to get parts for the server farm? However, as reliable as part are for servers, it would take a lot of trips in a personal vehicle to pay for the cost of a company truck.

I finally gave up and decided that I wouldn't know the real purpose. It may be a marketing thing. But without the right branding or exposure to what it is, I didn't commit it to memory. Which is part of what I was thinking about, with the right branding you remember the product. When you remember the product, you get curious. When you get curious enough times, you end getting the product. This comes back to full circle, know your audience and be consistent with your brand.

…and now for something completely different.
The largest recorded snowflake was in Keogh, MT during year 1887, and was 15 inches wide.

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Friday, 29 March 2024