Cloud CTO Rant: Everything I Hate About Cloud

The cloud is anything but boring. Like everything in humanity, the spectrum of talent runs the gambit insofar that the maxim, “It doesn’t take all types, we just have all types,” is just as true in the online world as in real time. So, no matter how horrific the digital landscape looks out there, you just can’t take your eyes off it.

Picture this: At 2am somewhere on the planet cloud you have:

• Fanatical teenagers armed with an endless supply of Red Bull manning a converted shopping mall turned datacenter somewhere in Texas as they babysit your managed colocation of “cloud” servers. 
• A guy in India staring at a screen with numerous green, some red and other neat colors on a very big display known as the NOC (News - Alert) alert system is wondering aloud if he should wake up the Americans (you know how cranky they get at this hour), which he finds odd because after all, they do live in the city that invented Starbucks. 
• A gaggle of millennials armed with billions of dollars thanks to ridiculous valuations such that they will never know what it’s like to struggle at a “real” startup where early on you have to execute on a business plan, or die trying to pay the bills. Au contraire, millennials have zero time for such mediocre minutiae. Instead, their time is spent changing the world by working on superfluous game changers like, “How can I create an anti-gravity solar powered kite that will supply fast Internet access to doctors saving monkeys on iPads via wireless in the African bush?”  Serious stuff, so they are busy coding away.  Note to self: Stupid me!  For my dot.com heyday, me and team dinCloud worked at Broadcom (News - Alert) making “real products” like Ethernet & Bluetooth (duh right?)
• A scene from Borat plays out, somewhere in the cloud. “This is my neighbor. He is pain my cloud holes. I get datacenter cage at Equinix (News - Alert); he must get datacenter cage at Equinix.  I offer a virtual desktop; he offer a virtual desktop. I don’t have data transfer fees? He cannot live without them; greedy bastard! Now I win all his customers... great success!!”

The Rebel Cloud

I predict that no one can ultimately win in the cloud -- unless they embrace the Channel… and remain loyal to it. However, you’ve got clouds that came out of online commerce so they just keep selling online. Some companies were nothing more than a bad colocation dream and have spun it as “cloud” to keep current, so they use massive outbound telemarketing campaigns to reach clientele. You’ve got major software publishers and hardware manufacturers now in the cloud who used to pay great margin on everything but cut off the money tree and only pay big on cloud now – but do you trust they will keep paying once everyone is in and they don’t “need” the Channel anymore?

Many clouds popped up on the VMware/Citrix/EMC (News - Alert)/NetApp “pod” bundles – and can’t compete because this kind of enterprise technology isn’t cost effective, nor scales to the challenge of cloud (hey, my blog, my opinion!). dinCloud has been down every rat hole out there, trust me! As such, we learned pretty quickly there are two major truths in the cloud:

1) Embrace the Channel for life

2) The problem is half software, half hardware.

Thank God that my competitor’s “alliances” to bring software and hardware together are mere marketing fluff with little to no real engineering behind it.

Cloud Traps

Interestingly enough, you’d think in a BIG, BIG CLOUD that you’d get BIG, BIG PERFORMANCE, but it’s just ONE BIG, BIG LIE. Search the web for the name of any cloud service provider, and add the word “limitations” -- you’ll be shocked reading their back links at all the limitations they have. One cloud won’t let you burst beyond 2gbps per virtual network. Another cloud says if you want the maximum that the latest CPUs and memory can offer that you have to go bare metal. Huh?  Doesn’t that kind of kill the point behind “cloud” and “virtualization”? Is this 2014? Most clouds don’t offer virtual desktops. Too many clouds don’t encrypt all data in the cloud by default.  How is healthcare, financial, government or anyone supposed to move to the cloud without absolute privacy? Anything that isn’t secure isn’t truly usable! Most clouds nickel and dime you for every single byte of data you touch in the cloud (“data transfer fees”). Are they trying to send you the subtle message not to actually use your cloud hosted servers, desktops, and cloud storage? The cellular companies tried this for a few decades and now we’re in the age of flat rate unlimited data, talk and text with no contracts. Get with the times cloud!  

Takeaways

The perfect cloud is the one you can buy from the vendor you already know and trust – the Channel team that will support you no matter what. That’s why distributors like Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Arrow, plus 127+ VARs (including CDW (News - Alert), Insight Enterprises, En Pointe Technologies, Tiger Direct, and others) resell dinCloud worldwide.

When you need cloud hosted servers, desktops, cloud storage, voice, transport, software licensing, hardware endpoints, professional/managed services, data migration to the cloud, maintenance of your Windows/Linux environments in the cloud, a discussion about how to leverage cloud for business continuity/disaster recovery, etc. the Channel is there for you.

Ah, there’s hope in the cloud after all. Yours truly, Dr. Cloud.