Flying
Toasters and “The Cloud”
Went to a business
seminar today on “Why every business should be using cloud
computing”, it was really interesting. Not so much for the
technical explanations as for what it means for end users – you,
the customer.
The thing these days
is that new technology comes along every year, than I can just about
keep up with. But the thing that seems to baffle everyone, whether
you work in IT or just use it every day as a tool for your business
is that the marketing hype seems to move totally at the speed of
light.
Marathons became
Snickers, Spangles vapourised, milk migrated to cartons and butter
became some form of long chain hydrocarbon I believe. Tim Rookes from
Red Cloud IT http://www.redcloudit.uk/
launched into a wonderful analogy, so subtle that at first I wondered
what he was going on about. Water barrels compared to kitchen taps,
something that works just fine thank you compared to service level
agreements. Soon we are staring at an HP server balanced precariously
on a plan surrounded by a wet floor with a backup disk/tape on top,
then the slide shows a data centre like something out of Dr Who.
He is of course
right, who would you trust with your hard earned data. Web sites,
emails, documents, collaboration, appointments. Even myself I was
delighted when I crashed my phone and made a tentative decision to
totally rebuild the operating system. At that time I had no idea how
Android would handle this little mess, some things Linux are great,
some tasks even for someone with twenty plus years in computing are
definitely a leap of faith and this was one of them. I hit factory
reset (do not try this at home and do not ring me when it goes Pear
shaped) . Within minutes it is asking my email address, why? To set
up email? Well good luck with that, I have 4 email accounts and a
ruck of software. There is little in IT that I do not rip into and
customise. Email address entered, I put the kettle on.
Behold, Coffee
served and pretty much the bulk of my apps restored, desktop usable,
email accounts all intact, joy ensued! Sure enough a few weeks later
I decided to install a spirit level app, to level my artwork on the
wall. I am a bit OCD about level pictures, 0.01 of a degree is enough
“out of kilter” for this guy to investigate. Chinese made Android
phone demonstrating IT overkill when a simple bubble of Green liquid
would do, but hey where is the fun in that? The first time I dropped
it on the rug, tough little bugger these things. The second time it
hit my Art box, a bastion of ancient technology, nicely varnished and
handed down from Artist to Artiste, generation by generation. Phone
re-assembled, batter inserted, power on. Display? Display
half-mooned, pixels corrupted, unintelligible flashing patterns
strobing across the screen.
Gorilla glass
untouched, the display's multiplexer trashed by a surge of static
Electricity and the Liquid Crystal Display no longer quite so liquid
or clear as a crystal. Useless. No unhappy with being part of the mob
I had changed networks to a
cheaper one and hacked the phone to work with it instead of Yodafone.
Trouble is the backup brick is locked to Yodafone. Luckilly
my friend emails to say he had just got a bargain contract phone from
his supermarket, I check out the rates on the website and and tres
embarrassed! He has got a nice Nokia for what I am spending anyway.
Order placed and three days later the phone arrives filling about a
third of the packing box.
So
I moved from Android to Windows mobile, how hard can it be? Email
accounts set up manually, I use custom domains so they are never as
easy as my Gmail and Outlook accounts. Soon my Appointments Calender
in Gmail is synching with Windows 8.1 mobile and Cortana is trying to
chat me up. As I am older and wear glasses I am delighted to find it
is easier to poke tiles than teeny robot based icons. I may not have
my favourite apps but they all have equivalents and it works with my
Windows PC better. I am happy again and it has a decent camera. I
load Spotify and “Music” app and let rip, poor through the
speaker of course. Then I slide my new cheap Philips headphones in
and pump up da volume, boy does this toy go loud. Oh joy! It is
fantastic on 'phones!
So
back to the cloud. I saved all my important data because it was all
backed up to the cloud, my emails all live in the cloud. My Android
app configuration was all in the cloud. My worries taken care of my
someone else. My record collection, streamed from the cloud, no need
for massive hard drives and drawers full of DVD's – all taken care
of.
Then
I remembered how many companies I have build websites for, not stored
on their own servers, consuming air and making noise - all on the
cloud. No sleepless nights worrying if power supplies would give out.
They did at the next company I worked for, try buying a HP Proliant
Blade power supply at your local PC world. I
am sorry Sir
we don't do those. A year
later 12 ageing noisy servers
retired. All
on the cloud now with a
24-7 service level agreement, not my problem any more. Thanks a
bunch, I had forgotten how important the cloud is and it was nice to
be refreshed. This is how and why I sleep at night and dream of
flying toasters – remember them!
