The Cloud: A Straightforward Definition with Examples

There’s a lot of talk about the cloud, but not a lot of succinct, straightforward definitions or examples. And the more the marketing crowd gets their hands on the word, the vaguer it becomes.

So without further ado, here’s my working definition of “cloud” as it’s commonly used today.

DEFINITION: The cloud is computer resources that exist somewhere; but not where you are. (And by “not where you are”, I do mean way out there; the cloud is not the resources you’re accessing on your work network if you happen to be at home at the moment.)

LITMUS TEST: if you yourself couldn’t physically point to — or couldn’t get your IT staff to point to — the actual device running your application or storing your data, there’s a good chance you’re operating in the cloud. Better yet, if temporarily interrupting your connection to the internet (gasp!) would severely impact your ability to use an application or access your data, think “cloud.”

EXAMPLES:

• Cloud
  • Webmail like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail
  • Online Social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google+
  • Online photo sharing & editing apps like Flikr, Picnik
  • Hosted document creation & editing suites like Google Apps, Microsoft Web Apps, Microsoft Office 365 (different from the traditional Microsoft Office)
  • Online data storage like DropBox, Amazon's Cloud Drive, Apple's iCloud, Box.net, Microsoft's SkyDrive
  • Hosted backup like Backblaze, Carbonite, Mozy
  • Hosted e-doc review platforms like Trial Solutions OnDemand, kCura Relativity, Concordance FYI
  • Online music players and repositories like Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, Last.fm, Grooveshark
• Not Cloud (i.e. "Local", "In-House")
  • Document creation & editing suites like Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc), OpenOffice.org
  • Photo viewing & editing apps like Photoshop, Picasa
  • Local data storage like your thumb drive, CD and DVDs, internal and external hard drives, most likely even the data on your "shared" company drives
  • Email clients like Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, IBM Lotus Notes
  • In-house e-doc review platforms like IPRO, Summation Enterprise, Concordance

If you see the word “hosted”, “web”, or “online” in the name of something, it’s probably in the cloud; that’s because the cloud is just computers (usually in a datacenter) that are physically not under your or your company’s control. And while that sounds scary — and certainly poses its own set of security risks and downsides — it does come with its share of benefits. Do you need quick, easy access to a complex application or powerful processing? Do you not have the IT resources and IT staff to install, configure, and upkeep such a thing? Do you not want — or not care — whether the data is stored locally? Well, then welcome to the cloud.

The lines between local and cloud are blurring and will continue to blur as more applications and data heads skyward, and the lists and definitions above are not without their share of caveats (most of which have been omitted for the sake of simplicity; instead of keeping your Microsoft Exchange mail server local, for instance, a third party could hosted this service for you in the cloud).

That’s it! If your definition of the cloud was, er…cloudy, I hope this helped to clear things up.