[LINK] IT warned: Cloud could make you look bad

[Tom Worthington]

At 04:42 PM 22/05/2009, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>... However there are many other in-house systems that I would hope 
>were never put on a cloud. Defence, Centrelink, Medicare and the ATO 
>have some that spring to mind. ...

Large government agencies could run their own internal cloud-like 
systems, just as they run their own internets (with a small "I").

>It's also not a very new concept. What's the conceptual 
>difference  between cloud computing and old fashioned mainframe 
>timesharing, modern ASPs and straight forward internet hosting? ...

The difference with cloud computing may be in having standardised 
interfaces for the applications. This is much the same as with the 
popularity of the Internet and the Web: these did not do anything 
with networking or hypertext documents which has been done before, 
just that they provided standards which popularized the technology.

It is a lot easier to propose to build an application "with cloud 
computing like Google and Amazon.com do" than have to explain to 
executive types how multi-user, multi-tasking, multi-cluster, 
multiprocessor applications work.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University