I was quite elated after a successful talk at the national level event on Cloud Computing. My keynote address was well received and many folks congratulated me after the address for a fluent and thought provoking speech.
As I entered home whistling and humming my favorite song, my wife, who was busy looking at the slides through microscope, looked up with a surprised face.
“How come you don’t have a half dead look like every day?” She questioned.
“Well, I gave a nice speech on Cloud Computing today”. I smiled.
“What is Cloud Computing?” She asked.
A dark cloud cast a shadow on my face. I knew that I asked for trouble.
“Hmmm. Cloud Computing is when you can get access to all computing power and software without owning one”
“Don’t they call that Internet Cafes?” She had a sarcastic look.
“No this is cloud computing, it’s different.” I was not willing to give up.
“Why is this called Cloud Computing? Do they have computers on the cloud? What if the cloud drifts?”
“No, there are no computers on the cloud.” I laughed.
“Then why is it called cloud computing.” She was irritated.
“Because it uses multiple data centers across the world and the access can be through internet”. I tried to explain in layman terms.
“Then it should be called Internet Computing, Right? Why is it called cloud computing?”
“Because dear, Internet is on the cloud” I tried to go deeper.
“What? Internet is on the cloud? Since when? Is that the reason I don’t get my internet connections on a cloudy day?”
“No internet is not on cloud, honey”
“Be clear, just one second back you told internet is on cloud”. She was getting angry.
“No, please listen. Internet is connected through wireless and fiber optic wires which run through the seas. Since we can’t represent all those things pictorially, we connect it through a cloud.” I knew I was messing up. These doctors, they want everything crystal clear. Why can’t they imagine internet depicted as a cloud?
“Just because you can’t represent something, you call them cloud? This is ridiculous.” She paused. “You could have called it as “Fiber Optic Computing” or “Under Sea Computing”. What is this nonsense called cloud computing?”
“Well.” Words were not coming out of my mouth.
“How can you call that cloud computing? Where is the cloud here? Clouds are unpredictable, they drift away, and they bring rain. Why the heck are you naming it as cloud computing?”
“See honey, since the computing is done in a far off place which you don’t know, they call it as cloud computing” I tried to reason.
“But you can see the cloud.” She said. “You should have called invisible computing or far off computing, right?”
I could not see any silver lining on this cloud.
“And you are beaming like a laser ray after this stupid talk? Cloud computing I believe.” She laughed. “Imagine us saying Oh! Now we have a cloud cure for cancer, or let us do this surgery in the cloud! People will stone us.” Sarcasm was all over her face.
“But today, cloud computing is the talk of the town honey.” I said.
“So what does this cloud computing do?” She asked
“Well, pretty much it does the same thing what your computers do, but at a lower cost. Since the computing is done at far off data center and is shared among many users, it will be cheap”
“This is ridiculous” She said. “May dad used to say the same thing when he used to operate an EDP center using a main frame 40 years ago.”
“I can’t understand you IT guys, you give some new stupid name to something which is already decades old or may never work for next few decades and talk for years on that subject.” She looked disgusted.
“Well” I whimpered again. I was kicked out of cloud nine in just 2 minutes.
Ram Mohan
Copyright© Ram Mohan
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PS: This is a fictitious article and the characters and situations are my imagination. If it resembles any real life persons or situations, it is purely coincidental.
