Cloud computing is one of those terms that became so normal that we stopped thinking about what it actually means. We upload a file to the cloud, run an application in the cloud or move infrastructure to the cloud. It sounds almost abstract, as if the hardware underneath somehow disappeared.
It didn’t. Behind that nice little cloud icon there are still servers, storage devices, network switches, cables, cooling systems and people keeping everything running. The clever part is that most of that complexity has been hidden from us. Instead of buying a server, installing it, maintaining it and eventually replacing it, we can request computing resources in minutes and treat infrastructure almost like another software component.
That abstraction is incredibly useful, but I think it can also make us a little lazy. Moving something to the cloud doesn’t automatically make it scalable, secure or reliable. A badly designed application running on expensive cloud infrastructure is still a badly designed application. Sometimes it’s just considerably more expensive to operate.
I like the cloud precisely because it removes a huge amount of infrastructure work when used properly. But it’s worth remembering what’s underneath it. The cloud isn’t magic, and it certainly isn’t floating anywhere. It’s somebody else’s computer, packaged extremely well.
