Apparently, most inventions and technologies have their roots in jargon. In fact, jargonizing is the favourite pastime of almost all tech companies. So, when they are not conjuring up innovative software or hardware solutions, they are prone to cook up some mumbo-jumbo. Usually, these jargons are in the form of acronyms and over a period of time through repeated usage they tend to take on real shape. Sample some of the jargons that have become real, like NC (network computers), ERM (enterprise resource management), RIM (remote infrastructure management, Grid computing, SOA (service oriented architecture), etc. 

Cloud computing is the latest cloud on the block. The term today encompasses a lot more than it innocently declares, and often means different things to different people.  Accordingly, cloud computing stands for SaaS (software as a service), PaaS (platform as a service) and IaaS (infrastructure as a service). But that isn’t all; it also incorporates Web 2,0 and HyperWeb functionalities.  At the basic, it simply means ‘doing things over the Web’, the cloud tantamounts to Internet in this case.

While there is some sort of clarity on what a ‘cloud’ is and what it should be doing. But, there is little or almost no clarity on how one ‘cloud’ should be reacting to another ‘cloud’ or rather working with other clouds. The reason is fairly obivious, the companies that are working on cloud computing, are basically doing in a very personal and private way. Thus, you have the IBMs, the Googles, the Amazons, and the Salesforce.coms of the world who are building and rolling out services and solutions in a cloud architecture. But these are unique to the company and usually have little or nothing in common with others. Hence, there are myriad clouds floating over cyberspace that don’t recognise each other and neither want to either.  It is as if every company is in love with its cloud and wants their client to only be bound by their own. There is little trust in cloud computing. Continue reading …