Comments on: Inside or Outside? Gartner Attempts to Clear Cloud ‘Confusion’ http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2008/09/29/inside-or-outside-gartner-attempts-to-clear-cloud-confusion/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:28:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Dean Thrasher http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2008/09/29/inside-or-outside-gartner-attempts-to-clear-cloud-confusion/comment-page-1/#comment-183237 Dean Thrasher Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:03:34 +0000 http://www.fastforwardblog.com/?p=1145#comment-183237 I'm not sure Gartner's distinction is helpful. Does cloud computing simply mean outsourcing your IT needs using web technology? Most of the benefits they cite for cloud computing would apply to outsourcing any internal corporate function. If that's all that's at play here, then we should just call it outsourcing and be done with it. But if cloud computing means more than "ousourced IT" then it's the web technology component that matters. The enabling technologies, hardware and software represent a different approach to networked computing. Most of those technologies can be applied just as easily inside the enterprise as outside the enterprise, or what I call the "small cloud" and the "big cloud." I’m not sure Gartner’s distinction is helpful. Does cloud computing simply mean outsourcing your IT needs using web technology? Most of the benefits they cite for cloud computing would apply to outsourcing any internal corporate function. If that’s all that’s at play here, then we should just call it outsourcing and be done with it.

But if cloud computing means more than “ousourced IT” then it’s the web technology component that matters. The enabling technologies, hardware and software represent a different approach to networked computing. Most of those technologies can be applied just as easily inside the enterprise as outside the enterprise, or what I call the “small cloud” and the “big cloud.”

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