Cloud computing has been defined in so many different ways that it has led to much confusion. The promise of cloud computing is a virtual environment where applications can be run and information can be stored and accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection. But what does that mean, exactly? And are the solutions billed today as cloud computing solutions really … well … cloud computing?
As currently defined, cloud computing is actually a stack comprised of at least three layers.
The bottom layer is comprised of infrastructure, commonly termed Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This includes all of the hardware and base OS software required to run a hosted or cloud service, and includes servers, routers, switches, bandwidth, OS and so on along with the physical locations this hardware will be housed.
On top of this layer are the platform services, such as grid computing services which includes compute and shared memory, auto-scalability services, redundancy and high availability, management and monitoring and a basic stack for installation and development (LAMP, most commonly) as well as many others. A good example of this is Amazon’s Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2) services. This layer is commonly referred to as Platform as a Service (PaaS).
At the highest layer is the software and applications that can be leveraged and run on top of the other two layers. These services can be pre-packaged applications (GMail is referred to a lot in this thread, and is a great example) or objects and web services that can be leveraged using an API (commonly using SOAP or a RESTful framework), and are collectively known as Software as a Service (Saas).
But despite all the latest innovations in the area of cloud computing (NoSQL, CloudRAM, distributed computing and so on), the reality remains that its current definition is somewhat limiting. Cloud computing solutions today are very much centralized, managed by one or a group of vendors and scale and availability are directly proportional to the amount of resources allocated by the solution (i.e. more hosting centers, more servers and so on). This is exactly why the next wave of innovation in cloud computing must resolve these current limitations and move beyond the current paradigm. This is where crowd sourcing comes in.
Time and time again, crowd sourcing is demonstrating how it can completely transform business models and significantly improve a product, service or industry and in the process democratize them. Wikipedia is a great example of this. So why can’t this be true for cloud computing as well? Put simply, there are billions of individuals on the planets and tens of thousands if not more of organizations. Most have resources that are connected to the Internet and that can be essentially plugged into an overall cloud fabric. These resources can then be used by anyone that requests them. Consider millions of computers worldwide opted in and offering their idle compute and memory resources to the “grid”. Seti@Home is a great example of how a global voluntary grid computing platform can be leveraged. Extend this now to include other resources such as storage, web services and any number of features and capabilities provided by companies and individuals and all of a sudden we have a massively scalable and truly distributed cloud computing platform. Add a solid security model to the mix and a distributed revenue model that allows those who opt-in resources to get a rental fee for usage and we have created a compelling way for users and companies to contribute resources to the cloud while benefiting from other cloud resources.
Technically, this is not an easy solution to solve, there are many technical challenges and issues (for example, allowing a specific user to share their storage securely and without any risk of theft or data destruction). But these challenges can be overcome. And evolving cloud computing to the crowd-sourcing model will ensure longer term viability and scalability of cloud computing itself.
Somewhere along the road to adulthood, the incredible ideas we conjured as a child morph to the point where they become either watered down or disappear altogether. What happened?
Children know no boundaries when it co
mes to inventing things. They do not understand current technological limitations and hardly care that “this simply cannot be done”. They are extremely perceptive, far more than we think, and come up with extraordinary ideas to solve problems and to enable us to do things we couldn’t otherwise accomplish. Indeed, the mind of a child is an amazing thing. I see it in the drawings of my 9 year old son. He comes up with the most amazing stuff: a house that is fully self-sustaining (with detailed explanations to support it), a flying car, a multi-dimensional transporter, robotic extensions for humans to shield them from harm (creepy parallel here to Surrogates?). While many of the ideas are extensions of existing technology that improve on their current design, others (the multi-dimensional transporter comes to mind) are far out in terms of any known or verifiable physics today. Does this really matter? Why should it?
When a child asks a question, they are tenacious and not accepting of a simple answer, to the point that it can become exhausting … for us. “Why does something work this way?” A simple answer is insufficient. They want to dig deeper and understand it at its most fundamental level. “But why?” As we peel back the onion, they dig even deeper, and push us to a level of understanding of the problem that surpasses the knowledge we can summon off the top of our heads. It requires research and investigation … which requires time …. and patience. We often try to put an end to the inquisition by simply saying something like “Well, God made it this way” or “Because that’s how the Universe works” or simply just “That is impossible”, all in an authoritative tone (“I’m an adult, I knows best!”), and most times in respect or deference to our positions of authority as adults, they accept … even though we know that this remains an unsettled item for them.
I am thankful today for resources such as Wikipedia. My son is smart enough to realize that Dad doesn’t know everything. I try to answer his questions as best I can, but the conversation often becomes one of either “Well, Dad, I know you don’t know, but I’m sure Wikipedia does” or “I don’t know the answer, son, let’s go look it up on Google or Wikipedia”. But even these resources are limited. They tap the realm of “what is” as opposed to the realm of “what could be”. And here lies the fundamental issue, in my view. Over time, as we get older, we tend to become less concerned with what could be possible with what is possible. We learn that there are physical and other limitations to the way the world works today. We begin to implicitly accept that certain things (such as a multi-dimensional teleporter) are simply not possible, at least not with our current understanding of physics and other disciplines. History has shown that those who chose to ignore current limitations and push the boundaries of known science opened the door to new ways to view this Universe we live in and, ultimately, to spur innovation. Albert Einstein, for example, refused to believe that the Universe is limited to what we can see. The Wright brothers simply refused to subscribe to “common knowledge” that a machine is simply too heavy to fly. Their discoveries and inventions transcend simple engineering, they require a stretch … imagination. Imagineering.
Children are incredible imagineers and I think we have let them down. In the process, we may be depriving ourselves of a whole new wave of innovation that could push humanity beyond anything we can currently fathom. Understanding the current limitations of science is important as we get older. And that’s the key: accepting that the limitations of science are based only on our limited comprehension at a point in time. As we push the barriers and discover new insights into the Universe we live in, those limitations will be removed and new barriers to transcend will be set, creating a whole new era of understanding and innovation. This is what we have to teach our kids. When they ask us “Why”, we should be responding “This is what we know today, and what we know is possible today. But who knows, we may discover it is possible tomorrow. And you may be the one!” Provide context to the boundaries and limitations we face today, let them imagine and dream of the possibilities for the future … and let them follow through to perhaps one day realize what they imagined was possible as a child … to the benefit of us all. Imagineer!
