Spouting Shite

Explaining Cloud Computing to Less-Technical Friends

In a constant effort to explain cloud computing to my non-technical friends I try to use analogy’s and examples like the slash dot story or the what if I had more data story. Here is another one….which I paraphrased from TechTarget.com.

Useful analogy for cloud computing is RAID, redundant arrays of inexpensive disks. When the first patents for this revolutionary concept were filed by IBM in 1977, the focus was on performance, not cost. Ten years later it became apparent that an array of consumer-grade “crap disks” could deliver better reliability and performance than standalone disks at dramatically lower costs. So much cheaper, in fact, that when enough parts failed, the array was “pushed out the back door” and dumped.

Google’s cloud operating system rests on similar hardware architecture of throwaway components lashed together for maximum processing and minimum monitoring — all under the control of a “single executive” software.

More here.