What is the cloud, really? Never before have we had a technology that suffers so greatly from such a completely ambiguous name. Gartner Research VP Paolo Malinverno has observed that most organizations define cloud as any application operating outside their own data centre. This is probably as lucid a definition as any I’ve heard.
More formalized attempts to describe cloud rapidly turn into essays that attempt to bridge the abstract with the very specific, and in doing seem to miss the cloud for the clouds. Certainly the most effective comprehensive definition has come from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and most of us in the cloud community have fallen back to this most authoritative reference when clarity is important.
Now is our chance to give back to NIST. To define cloud is to accept a task that will likely never end, and the standards boffins have been working hard to continually refine their work. They’ve asked for public comment, and I would encourage everyone to review their latest draft of the Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations. This new publication builds on the basic definitions offered by NIST in the past, and at around 84 pages, it dives deep into the opportunities and issues surrounding SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. There is good material here, and with community input it can become even better.
You have until June 13, 2011 to respond.
K. Scott Morrison's Blog 