A colleague forwarded a recent article to me on cloud computing, written by John D. Sutter at CNN. Having worked in the computer networking industry for many years, I’m no stranger to the concept of storing my documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in data centers, a few thousand feet to many thousands of miles away from where I sit, able to retrieve them at a moments notice from wherever I’m able to get online. I may not know which data center holds my files, but I know they’re ‘out there’, on the web, in the cloud, while I don’t have to worry about taking up storage space on my laptop.

Although it may seem mysterious to those who aren’t familiar with data centers, the cloud isn’t magical, but highly technical, and quite secretive, as Mr. Sutter experienced when he went off to find out where the cloud is and where his documents, spreadsheets and presentations are actually stored.

I enjoyed the article because Mr. Sutter did a great job of bringing cloud computing down to earth (does that make it fog? sorry, I couldn’t resist!), and how he, with little cooperation from some of the big data centers, was finally able to tour one, sharing what he learned – and his concerns - with us.

The article begins with a humorous but informative 2 minute video explaining cloud computing.

Worth the read! Let me know what you think.
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