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Chapter 6 The Cloud
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Virtual
Organization’s Private
Computing Cloud
Infrastructure VPN (other data
VPN stored here)

(sensitive data
stored here)
Public Cloud

Users
Figure 6-24 Cloud Service Vendor
Using a Virtual Private Computing Infrastructure
Cloud (VPC)

Q6-7 2026?

So where does the cloud go in the next 10 years? Absent some unknown factor such as a federal
tax on Internet traffic, cloud services will become faster, more secure, easier to use, and cheaper.
Fewer and fewer organizations will set up their own computing infrastructure; instead, they will
benefit from the pooling of servers across organizations and from the economies of scale produced
by cloud vendors.
But, looking a bit deeper, the cloud brings both good and bad news. The good news is that
organizations can readily obtain elastic resources at very low cost. This trend will benefit everyone
from individuals on the iCloud or Google Drive, to small groups using Office 365, to companies like
Falcon Security using PaaS, to huge organizations like NASDAQ OMX (Case Study 6) using IaaS.
The overall size of the cloud is getting bigger too. For example, Google’s Project Loon looks
to seed the atmosphere with high-altitude balloons capable of providing Internet access to previ-
ously unreachable parts of the planet. And Google isn’t stopping there. It’s also making the cloud
faster. Google Fiber aims to offer users 1 Gbps connections to the Internet. That’s 100 times faster
than the average broadband connection. Comcast responded to Google’s plans by announcing its
own gigabit-per-second service.
So what’s the bad news? Remember that 500,000-square-foot Apple Web farm in Figure 6-2?
Note the size of the parking lot. That tiny lot accommodates the entire operations staff. According
to Computerworld, that building employs an operations staff of 50 people, which, spread over three
shifts, 24/7, means that not many more than eight people will be running that center at any one
time. Seems impossible, but is it? Again, look at the size of the parking lot.
And it’s not just large companies like Apple. In 2015, every city of almost any size still sup-
ports small companies that install and maintain in-house email Exchange and other servers. If
SaaS products like Google Drive or Office 365 replace those servers, what happens to those local
jobs? They’re gone! See Collaboration Exercise 6, page 276, for more on this topic.
But, with computing infrastructure so much cheaper, there have to be new jobs somewhere.
By 2026, where will they be? For one, there will be more startups. Cheap and elastic cloud services
enable small startups like the football player evaluation company Hudl (www.hudl.com) to access
CDN and other cloud services for next to nothing, a capability that would have taken years and
thousands of dollars in the past. Go to its site to check its response time; it’s fast!
An organization like Falcon Security can reduce its storage costs by 50 percent if it moves
its data to the cloud. If the move is successful, Falcon Security can increase profitability, have a