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Gartner Buzzword Tracker Says "Cloud Computing" Still on Hype Wave 84

Posted by timothy from the distingush-from-internet-kthxbye dept.
If you're sick of the term "cloud" to refer to pretty much anything on "the internet" and consider that phrase a symptom of useless MBA, PHB, PowerPoint talking points oozing where they don't belong, sorry — you'll probably have to endure it for a while yet. Nerval's Lobster writes that Gartner's 2012 Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies says that "Cloud computing" (along with a few other terms, such as "Near Field Communication" and "media tablets") is not just alive but growing. "Gartner uses the report to monitor the rise, maturity and decline of certain terms and concepts, the better for corporate strategists and planners to predict how things will trend over the next few months or years. As part of the report, Gartner's analysts have built a Hype Cycle which positions technologies on a graph tracing their rise, overexposure, inevitable fall, and eventual rehabilitation as quiet, productive, well-integrated, thoroughly un-buzz-worthy technologies. Right now, Gartner views hybrid cloud computing, Big Data, crowdsourcing, and the 'Internet of Things' as on the rise, while private cloud computing, social analytics and the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon are coasting at the Peak of Inflated Expectations."
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Gartner Buzzword Tracker Says "Cloud Computing" Still on Hype Wave More

Gartner Buzzword Tracker Says "Cloud Computing" Still on Hype Wave

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  • Buzzword compliance (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @08:00PM (#41031611) Homepage

    Slashdot needs to update their text for buzzword compliance. Instead of "submitting" comments to Slashdot, it should indicate that I'm "syncing comments to the cloud."

  • Meta (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gartner Buzzword Tracker Says "Buzzword" Still On Hype Wave

    • Gartner Buzzword Tracker Says "Buzzword" Still On Hype Wave

      Is a term used in an advertisement descriptive of a specific technology, item or service you can learn more about? If not, it's probably a buzzword.

      Is a term used to describe things for which there is no set beginning and no creator or founder? If so, it's probably a buzzword.

      It's not perfect, but it seems to me buzzword has a relatively specific (and useful) definition. I suppose we could all say "horseshit" instead of "buzzword," but that might not go over as well at the next all hands meeting...

  • riding chill waves of condensed water

  • It's a good word... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @08:30PM (#41031853)
    I kind of think "The cloud" at least in corporate terms, is entering a second life now. When it first came about, it was a lot of hype and nonsense. And I saw a lot of Execs getting excited about it and moving services to it. Over the years I've seen them realize the pitfalls of the services. Poor support, major security issues, unpredictable downtime relating to hardware issues we have no way of knowing about. But now I've seen it coming into it's own with the execs realizing that it IS good for some things. Your support site? Sure! Even if your whole company goes to shit it's still up. Your billing database? NOOOO...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      I kind of think "The cloud" at least in corporate terms, is entering a second life now. When it first came about, it was a lot of hype and nonsense. And I saw a lot of Execs getting excited about it and moving services to it. Over the years I've seen them realize the pitfalls of the services. Poor support, major security issues, unpredictable downtime relating to hardware issues we have no way of knowing about. But now I've seen it coming into it's own with the execs realizing that it IS good for some things. Your support site? Sure! Even if your whole company goes to shit it's still up. Your billing database? NOOOO...

      Our present experience with it - users are hampered by their work. Clouds overloaded and unresponsive. Effectively it's not a hugely useful tool, yet. I suppose it will get better, as soon as someone is making some money at it and competition takes it's work seriously, rather than just being "Me, too!"

      • Well, "The Cloud" isn't just one service. There are thousands of businesses out there offering Cloud services. Pick a good one, and have a good contract that demands what you need.

    • The alternative term, which I find less fuzzy sounding is 'hosted services'. For me, 'cloud computing' just seems like a term to obfuscate stuff and make marketing people happy.

      • Hosted Service, Software as a service, it's all just names... I believe "The Cloud" is just a larger term for all of this stuff. Yea, it's marketing, but isn't everything? I get to watch my marketing department re-label what a T1 is every 6 months. It's stupid, but that's why I'm not in marketing.
      • Much to my surprise, I've come to understand that "cloud computing" is a distinctive and legitimate term for a particular approach to managing computing resources.

        It's not a consequence of any single technology, except virtualization perhaps. It's more the idea of what becomes possible at the point where you can provision, manage, use, and deprovision a practical computing environment entirely in software.

        It's not that the underlying hardware doesn't exist and can't make itself felt through outages o
    • I should add a comment about the term "hosted services". Yes, in principle this might do just as well. Bit I don't think it entirely captures the degree of paradigm shift that we're talking about. A hosted service is an abstract service all right. And without abstract services you can't possibly speak of a cloud implementation of anything. But I think we maintain a lingering semantic association of "hosting" a service in something physical. Maybe that feels comforting, to remember that in fact it's not

  • in the clown... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MaerD ( 954222 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @08:31PM (#41031861)

    s/cloud/clown
    makes reading stories about "clown gaming", "clown storage", and anything else they put in the clown much more interesting.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Is this a nice, friendly clown? Or a Steven King clown, like IT [wikipedia.org]?

      Hmm, an IT angle here. I wonder how far one could write a white paper on the use of Cloud Computing as being a "penny wise" move for the company before someone catches on?

  • Anyone remember (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @08:48PM (#41032017) Homepage Journal

    Way back when if we would just make our apps CORBA compliant they would all magically integrate with no human effort whatsoever? And then XML promised the same?

    Now, apparently if we go with cloud computing, the desktops and LANs will magically maintain themselves for no discernible reason, apparently.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by afgam28 ( 48611 )

      Now, apparently if we go with cloud computing, the desktops and LANs will magically maintain themselves for no discernible reason, apparently.

      I don't think any cloud provider has ever promised anything like that. Can you give an example of one?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        True, but it does seem to be part of the hype.

        Whenever that sort of thing happens, many ad slicks start growing virtual ellipsis so the pointy haired can fill in the blanks from the hype. But they never actually make such claims in a legally binding sort of way. Often, it isn't the vendor, but the high priced consultant who will set up the vendor's product for you that does this.

    • You will always need access devices, true. However, there are a lot of orgs out there running servers who a) don't need a whole server and b) really don't want to run servers. You think your local mechanic shop wants to do anything more complicated than than plug in a laptop and router?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        The point isn't that cloud computing has NO value, just that it's value is more limited than it's hype.

        For example, do you REALLY think that the mechanic who just wants to plug in a laptop and a router is going to be able to select and then maintain a service in the cloud? Maintain the local backups in case the cloud provider says 'OOPS!' (while wildly gesticulating at the disclaimers in the contract)? What happens to the business if that DSL connection goes kaput for a few days? Is there at least a limp-a

  • I thought Wave was dead.

  • While the cloud irks me, digital just makes me want to choke someone

    "you can get this computer generated in both DVD AND DIGITAL!!!"
    "now available for digital download!!!"
    and on and on and on

  • And now there is the on-premises cloud [eucalyptus.com].

    • It's not as stupid as it sounds. The goal is to separate the administration of the physical hardware and the applications. The IT admins in the data center just maintain the servers and don't know or care what applications are running on them. The application admins in the office just maintain the application and don't know or care what servers it's running on.

  • The Onion (Score:5, Funny)

    by cffrost ( 885375 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @09:08PM (#41032183) Homepage

    The Onion seems to share the "hype" assessment:

    HP Offers 'That Cloud Thing Everyone Is Talking About' [youtube.com]

  • Words Mean Something (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 17, 2012 @09:14PM (#41032223)

    Words mean something; they are shorthand labels that encapsulate concepts, so we don't have to spell everything out all the time.
    For example:

    Cloud Computing = Running your software and storing your data on a computer that you do not own and cannot control

    So instead of boring my listener to death with "My business runs its software and stores its data on a computer we do not own and cannot control", I can simply say, "My business uses cloud computing."

    Isn't that so much nicer?

    • Cloud Computing = Running your software and storing your data on a computer that you do not own and cannot control

      Here's my problem. I was doing that 20 years ago. I know others were doing it longer ago than that. If that's truly all cloud computing is, then cloud computing is precisely nothing new at all.

      IMO, cloud is a real thing, but it entails more than just putting your apps and data on someone else's server.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by afgam28 ( 48611 )

      Words mean something; they are shorthand labels that encapsulate concepts, so we don't have to spell everything out all the time.
      For example:

      Cloud Computing = Running your software and storing your data on a computer that you do not own and cannot control

      So instead of boring my listener to death with "My business runs its software and stores its data on a computer we do not own and cannot control", I can simply say, "My business uses cloud computing."

      Isn't that so much nicer?

      I'm sure the first phrase is a lot nicer to you, since it neatly encapsulates your prejudices against the technology. But not everyone is like you, and some people value different things from what you value. How about:

      "My business runs its software on a fleet of computers that can grow and shrink automatically, based on CPU load limits that I define"
      or
      "My business stores its data in a database that is redundant across three data centers, and we didn't have to build or rent buildings all around the world"

      For

    • Don't forget the various subsets of "cloud computing".
      If you have a "personal cloud", you actually do, at least least in part, control the computers. From the definition I got from Microsoft Norway, it pretty much just means your server room uses virtual machines in a dynamic way with lots of automation.
    • Yep, that's music to my ears, because I sell Lightning Insurance.

    • Isn't that so much nicer?

      The major problem is choosing a word that accurately describes the encapsulated concept. The term, "cloud computing" implies something soft and harmless. The more correct term is, "crapshoot computing", because you're gambling with your future.

  • what about the word "mainframe" (Score:3)

    by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @10:00PM (#41032535)
    anyone that has been around knows that "cloud" is just a marketing term for mainframes.

  • To hell with the cloud (Score:3)

    by Nethemas the Great ( 909900 ) on Friday August 17, 2012 @10:28PM (#41032699)
    Software as a service is nothing but a bloody business model based upon extortion. Can't afford to pay your fees, or your service provider goes out of business and you're completely hosed.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Scowler ( 667000 )
      I assume then, that you don't rely on any webmail service like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail, right?
      • I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to get at. Email by definition is a "service". There is no alternative but a personally serviced sneaker net.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by afgam28 ( 48611 )

          You can choose to install sendmail on a server somewhere yourself, and connect to it using Thunderbird, or you can use Gmail.

          You can choose to install MySQL on a server somewhere yourself, and connect to it using phpMyAdmin, or you can use Amazon's RDS.

          If you had ever tried, you'd know that sendmail is an absolute bitch to configure properly. Most people don't bother, even those who are technically inclined. MySQL is less painful, but administrating a big database is still a lot of work.

          Why you think email

          • Irrelevant. You're dependent upon Internet service providers.

            I however, can install locally a host of productivity and entertainment software that does not depend upon a service hosted "in the cloud". I do not need a cloud hosted IDE, word processor, a cloud hosted FPS, a cloud hosted storage server, music/video content, compute node, etc. etc.. each with a monthly rent, each vulnerable to external threats. Threats from business shutdown, threats from foreign or domestic attack, threats from rate increas

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by afgam28 ( 48611 )

              Why is this irrelevant? SaaS encompases applications that require Internet access (e.g. email and databases), and applications that haven't traditionally required it (e.g. word processors and storage).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gblfxt ( 931709 )

      not really, most of the time you can download a backup or copy (whats the difference?) before your service goes down. unless they are total sociopaths...

      • So if your infrastructure is built upon the API of the service you subscribe to you're OK? That music or game you downloaded that's dependent upon a DRM server is always usable even if the company shutters? If the unimaginable happens and Amazon goes down in smoke you're still good right? The U.S. enters WWIII and the data centers hosted in Europe become inaccessible to the companies dependent upon them. The Chinese government plants some trojans on that lovely data center hosting your R&D. So many

  • I don't want clouds! I want sun!

    Is the trademark "Sun" free already?

  • Near Field Communication is a buzzword? And here I thought that unlike "cloud", NFC referred to an actual technology with very specific implementation and use cases. I will join the choir here wondering why the technical knowledge of editors and submitters seems to be dropping precipitously.
  • I personally back up everything in my Wearable Personal Private Cloud (WPPC). The WPPC is amazing It can hold many GB's, is cheap for limited space but with a bit of money you can get a lot more space! The transfer speeds are amazing and I can access all my could data wherever I am as long as there is a computer, because it is the cloud it is always with me. It also has enhanced security an privacy features because it can be taken offline whenever I like it to be. In the old days the WPPC would be called a
  • How is using we searches (or whatever metric they use) to track words, and construct some unscientific "theory" about their rise and fall, not itself part of the current hype for this sort of thing. Who remembers Memetics?

    Gartner uses the report to monitor the rise, maturity and decline of certain terms and concepts, the better for corporate strategists and planners to predict how things will trend over the next few months or years. As part of the report, Gartner's analysts have built a Hype Cycle which po

  • "Ride the hype wave, wipe-out!
  • Well, I think so. It should be updated as well as upgraded for better appearance. it should also be organized.

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