It\u2019s the nature of the shallow, consumer-driven, dream-drunken culture our society tries to impose on us that we popularly adopt terms without knowing what they mean and, more often than not, they don\u2019t mean much of anything.<\/p>\n
Such is the case with \u201cthe Cloud\u201d.<\/p>\n
Most people who use computers believe they know what it is except that everyone seems to have a different definition. From a satellite-based storage system to a virtually invisible network to a collection of hard drives all over the world to a new form of storage that doesn\u2019t require computers to\u2026whatever new definition pops up this week. In any case, you have heard of the \u201ccloud\u201d and probably aren\u2019t sure what it really is.<\/p>\n
This week, the Army announced it would be putting its Defense Cross-Domain Analytical Capability \u2014 a database storing various kinds of \u201csecurity-relevant\u201d information \u2014 on the Cloud. This surprising development indicates a level of maturity for Cloud computing that could be important for us all, in a contradictory way. We are closer than ever to being able to build a completely de-centralized and privacy-protected Internet network and that is a development we all should be actively supporting. Unsurprisingly, it\u2019s a development corporations are frantically seeking to prevent or control.<\/p>\n
To understand all this, you have to first understand what \u201ccloud storage\u201d actually is and to do that you have to divert your eyes from the sky. That\u2019s not where you\u2019ll find it \u2014 no satellites or \u201cnon-wired data transfer\u201d or invisible storage devices. It\u2019s not the complete break with previous Internet technology some think it is. In fact, it\u2019s not even new.<\/p>\n
A \u201ccloud\u201d is nothing more than a bunch of computers linked by a network. There\u2019s no consensus about how it got its name, although companies are more than happy to avoid correcting people\u2019s misinterpretations. But we know how it was developed. It\u2019s a simple \u201cprotocol\u201d (a system of computer commands) that allows for the automatic and rapid sharing of information across a network based on the division of files into smaller packages. In short, while you think you claim a precise place for all your files (a kind of personal hard drive in space) when you rent a piece of the \u201ccloud\u201d, you\u2019re giving your files to a provider so they can be chopped up and stored on several computers in the provider\u2019s network.<\/p>\n
This allows a provider to use its space efficiently and serve up your stored files quickly. If a particular storage computer is being overloaded with attempts to store information on it or retrieve information from it, the traditional storage computer would slow down or even crash. But with Cloud technology, the provider can route your request to many computers on which your file is stored and \u201cdistribute\u201d the demand with each storage device on the network taking on a bit of the \u201cload\u201d. It\u2019s a like a team pulling a heavy object and it all happens automatically and in a flash.<\/p>\n
Neat, huh? Companies sure think so and they\u2019re selling the service aggressively. They also have all kinds of products that afford an expansion of the basic storage services. For a higher price, for example, you can store your own software or share the software you and other cloudsters routinely use. So with this enhanced Cloud product, your computer\u2019s hard drive can be almost empty.<\/p>\n
This is a newer version of an old protocol called \u201cdumb computer networking\u201d in which your computer is not much more than a screen, a keyboard and a connection to the central server. All the computers on the network use that server as their hard drive. That\u2019s the way a lot of companies still work, keeping their employees from using their own workstations for personal communication (or writing a novel on company\u2019s time) and also making \u201cowership\u201d of that data unquestioned and unassailable. When they use the Cloud, it\u2019s as a back-up of their data.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also the way most individuals use it although they store stuff on their own hard drives. For them, the Cloud provides a safe and secure back-up storage that\u2019s immune to the data-loss resulting from that dreaded incident all of us have experienced: the hard drive crash.<\/p>\n