Bad Data Handbook

Chapter 14. Myths of Cloud Computing

Steve Francia

Myths are an important and natural part of the emergence of any new technology, product, or idea as identified by the hype cycle. Like any myth, technology myths originate in a variety of ways, each revealing intriguing aspects of the human psyche. Some myths come from early adopters, whose naive excitement and need to defend their higher risk decision introduce hopeful, yet mistaken myths. Others come from vendors who, with eagerness, over-promise to their customers. By picking apart some of the more prominent myths surrounding the cloud, we gain better understanding of not only this technology, but hopefully the broader ability to discern truth from hype.

Introduction to the Cloud

In some ways, cloud computing myths are easily among the most pervasive of all technology myths. Myths about the cloud are quickly perpetuated through a blend of ambiguity of what “the cloud” actually means and the excitement surrounding the hype of a new technology promising to be the solution to all our problems. As the hype around “the cloud” grows, each new vendor adopts that term while simultaneously redefining it to fit their product offerings.

What Is “The Cloud”?

For the purposes of this text, we will be using the term “the cloud” to refer to virtualized nodes on elastic demand as provided by vendors like Amazon’s EC2, Rackspace, Microsoft Azurel, Joyent, and more. Even with this somewhat restricting definition, there are significant differences between ...