Throughout my consulting career (hitting year 25 soon, yikes!) I have been the person to step in and explain complicated items, ideas, designs, processes, etcetera in terms that non-Mensa types (or developers) can run with!
Not that I am even close to Mensa level. Nor was I ever a developer. Well, does making games in the 80’s count? In those days I used Basic by just copying line code from a book on my green screen. I like to boil down concepts that make sense without us all being in the club of Brainiacs.
If I get enough eyes on this (give me some likes and pass along, please!) I hope to continue sharing insights into the software implementation industry.
Today I start at the beginning. What is “Cloud”? Not the beginning of software existence. Google Microsoft, Apple, Operating Systems, ERP, Software in the’ 70s…heck even search on Google for software history and you will see. But I’d like to start on a current trend going on in the industry this past decade that impacts your organization today (or you individually). Do you have an app where your data is not local to your phone? Boom it’s in the Cloud! We’ve all heard it, seen it, flown through it-the Cloud.
As my 82-year-old father has not failed to keep asking me each time I catch up with him, “what is “cloud” and why is everything in it? ” Come on, if you are reading this and not laughing at me, then you are glad my dad has innocently asked on your behalf.
The Cloud is the “mythical” stuff that used to run all the business applications for you at your place of business. Think of a Computer Server farm(s) or a server or two in the basement on a raised floor in your building. It now runs somewhere else that someone (a “vendor”) supports and worries about. Some of you non-IT types might say yippie, but it’ll cost you (nothing is for free, right?). I will address this topic in a later article on cloud license fees.
This “somewhere else,” hosted by others, is commonly known as the “Cloud.” As in poof! I took your costly big servers and made them disappear. And, as far as you know, they are up there in the clouds. Furthermore, you don’t care where or how they run things, just as long as you and your co-workers can still enter transactions, secure your data and get results—even producing paychecks and payments to vendors. Some of the big companies that run cloud server farms are Oracle and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
A bunch of technology makes the cloud “the cloud” (security, integration, URL/website, etc.), but that is beyond the scope of these articles. My goal here is what you need to know and what it all means. At this point, you need to know if your application is “in the cloud”, then you are most likely hitting a website to use the application. If there are server issues, you are not calling your people downstairs; you are calling your vendor/host.
Hence the Cloud just means what used to be local to you. Your business is now run by someone else, and so, as far as you are concerned, it’s a black box (well, a white puffy floating box!).
Drop me a “like” and I’ll get moving on the next articles for you all!…Scott
Scott Seligson is a 25 year veteran of system implementations. He has helped businesses plan and execute several successful projects across industries. Please reach out to Scott via LinkedIn with any questions or advice at https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottseligson
By Scott Seligson
