In IT, somebody finds a slightly different application of an age old concept, slaps a new, catchy label and a new craze emerges.
Take cloud file services like Dropbox for example (and I speak as a user of dropbox too). I agree that sharing files with dropbox is a nice, trouble-free experience, but we had the same functionality with FTP ages ago. I will agree that most FTP clients are ugly and cryptic for a non technical person but there’s still nothing radically new about Dropbox and besides there are reasons why somebody would still prefer an FTP server instead.
And I had one of my clients asking me If it would be better to move their email to the cloud? And I went because they don’t have any servers on site, they get their email through an ISP, so technically their email is already “in the cloud”. So I don’t know what exactly he meant and I am sure neither did he.
And now lets talk about the new craze, BYOD. Just visit any random IT related website and you’ll see a mention of BYOD on the front page, how it is the biggest invention since sliced bread etc. etc.
Maybe I am dense, stupid and ignorant and I am missing some key point, but what new concept is brought by BYOD? There have always been ways to access corporate services through non-corporate computers via SSH, VPN and the like. What exactly is different now?
Emails for example, which in my experience is the most important corporate function and most people here will be familiar with, were BYOD-friendly since the first Blackbery came out and even before that.
Serious question from a co-worker the other day: “Will The Cloud ever run out of room?”
When I told her that The Cloud didn’t actually exist and was just a concept used to describe any web-based computer service, she didn’t believe me at first. I await the day when some IT drone just goes mad and locks himself in a server room for days while gibbering “The Cloud, The Cloud, The Cloud” to himself. Because you know it’s going to happen.
Just this morning I was wondering where ING Direct actually keeps my money. Then I shrugged my shoulders and figured it was in the cloud.
I assume the word ‘cloud’ came about because people have been drawing pictures of clouds to depict the internet for as long a I can remember talking about the internet (25 years or so). I suppose whoever started it, just said “Hey, when people put things on our server let’s call it ‘the cloud’”
Actually any network that you do not know or care to show in detail is depicted as a cloud. In your example above, some parts of the LAN are shown as clouds.
I noticed that, I just got tired of looking for a good “old” example. I was just trying to show that clouds have been around for over 20 years, so, when you think about it, it’s not really a surprise when they started calling it the cloud.
Also, I suppose, there’s no reason why a big business couldn’t have a ‘local cloud’. Maybe they could call it ‘fog’.
“Hey John, where that file?”
“I don’t know, it’s somewhere in the fog”
At my company, the only way to access e-mail on the go was through a company-controlled Blackberry. Since that Blackberry went through corporate servers, I couldn’t use the browser to access my personal e-mail (blocked in the corporate servers), I couldn’t download new apps or watch youtube. The company could see everything I searched for or browsed to.
The company doesn’t want me to access e-mail on my own potentially insecure and potentially compromised personal device, so if I wanted to have my own device (where I could see e-mail, facebook, download whatever, etc., and not necessarily a Blackberry), I had to carry two devices.
BYOD is a way for companies to deliver e-mail securely to personal devices. That’s pretty handy – it lets me carry only one device, one that I control, except for the one app that the company controls.
I imagine this kind of security is an issue for banks, law firms, and other companies where data security is very important.
I’m in the midst of dealing with the BYOD fad at my office. We already have moved from primarily corporate-managed personal devices (Blackberries) to allowing our folks to get corporate mail on their own devices via a secure third-party app that we can manage. The larger concept is allowing employees to use their personal computers as their primary work device. This is much more problematic (at least for us, as we deal with HIPAA and PHI data.) Many people no longer maintain a traditional work schedule and find themselves using their computer at any time, and they prefer to use one device for work and personal needs. We are not yet allowing it, but we are looking into the possibility.
Our company lets you log in through a Citrix client to a bunch of servers, so that everything work-related is done through that client. If you have a fast connection, it works pretty well.
IMHO, BYOD may be a craze, but it’s not one being driven by IT, but instead the user base. IT would much prefer that all of the users have one of two models of cell phone, three models of notebook computers and two models of desktop computers. And the desktop and notebook computers usually have a standard image on them. This arrangement is easy for IT to manage. If there’s a problem with your notebook system, they just reimage it and give it back to you. BYOD, on the other hand, is more anarchic. If someone prefers a Samsung Galaxy cell to the corporate standard Blackberry, they’re free to use it. If they prefer a Macbook Air to the corporate standard Dell Latitude E6420, they’re free to use it. But I think in these cases, IT can’t support the user beyond getting them setup initially, because they can’t possibly be familiar with all of the possible hardware that the users can get.
To me, the term “cloud” has always suggested flexibility and fungibility–like money, in fact. A set of files just parked on somebody else’s server, with no mechanisms for redundancy, is just “remote” storage. It’s no more cloud-like than files on my own local equipment.
I think you’re right about the term coming from the drawings, but ISTM that those drawings originally referred to generalized computing power, not user’s personal files. The idea was, I think, that everyone kept their own files but tapped “the cloud” (a network of mainframes) for involved processing, just as you’d tap the power grid for electricity. And that would have the property I described–if all your need is operations-per-second, it doesn’t matter where the machine doing them happens to reside, or whether the one you used last time is still operational, just as it wouldn’t matter to the end users where a robust grid’s power generation was happening at a given time.
Bring Your Own Device. The idea is that instead of a company-provided cell phone and computer, you get your own hardware; whatever you want, with perhaps an monthly allowance to cover the costs.
The way I’ve heard it is that while anything can connect to the network, you treat client devices - be they the PC on your desk or the phone in your pocket - as insecure. So you limit the points of entry, harden them all, aggressively monitor traffic for malware, etc.
because they don’t have any servers on site, they get their email through an ISP, so technically their email is already “in the cloud”. So I don’t know what exactly he meant and I am sure neither did he.