06-15-2022, 05:55 AM
----------------------- PART II - The (DARK) Cloud --------------------------
Every one of us reading this watched what happened next. Maybe not the whole time, but certainly parts of it. It was just like buying a PC or a laptop...by the time you got it home and unboxed, there was a new model already out. In other words, technology advanced at a seemingly rapid rate. The same advances happened in the networking world. Why? Because as computers became more powerful, people could do more with them, and when people could do more they needed to share more...and so on, and so on.
Now, I haven't skipped over, or forgotten about, ol' Algore creating the Interwebz, but really the Internet was just another form of networking so if good ol' Al hadn't personally invented the internet himself (all by his lonesome self, with no help from anyone else on planet Earth...AT ALL!), well, someone would have. This is how we all (should) know that Algore really DIDN'T create the Internet. The Internet is really just a logical networking conclusion. A solution to a problem. Despite what others may suggest, this is all the Internet is, just a means of connecting one device to another. Oh sure, there were some very clever inventions in addressing and networking technology (that Algore also did NOT invent), and there are even some continuing today. And, these will continue in the future...oh boy, will they!! Bottom line, the "Internet" is just a subset of the networking discussion as a whole (and this is important to remember for later).
Anyway, the point is; computers got more powerful, and networking got more powerful, and with the advent of cellular technology, networking infrastructure grew exponentially. It's what happened next that TPTB did NOT expect.
One day, somebody somewhere asked the question..."Ummmm, let's just say, hypothetically of course, I wanted to shut the whole Internet down...how would I go about doing this?" Of course, it wasn't just one person, and it wasn't just one question; there were actually millions of positive and negative questions like this. Things like..."How would we PREVENT the Internet from being shut down?"...and many millions of others. The point here is, there was a point in time where it became apparent that no one person over government had "control" of what we call the Internet now days. It was resilient, just as office networks were, just as WANs were, and it was all growing at an exponential pace. In fact, compute and networking was growing at such a rapid pace that it quickly became apparent that 'compute' power and networking were no longer the bottleneck in the information age...storage was.
Now, the topic of storage is a very complex topic because when we start talking about the quantities of data in play it's no longer just another RAID storage array, or even 1,000 of them...or even 1,000,000 of them. Storage quickly becomes an absolutely massive problem, and there is no easy solution. Why? Well, storage is big, and storage is heavy, and storage is hot, and storage is very, very, expensive! Compute becomes easy, and networking becomes easy...and storage becomes very HARD!
So, what was the industry's solution? LOL...it was very inefficient, and everyone reading this has experienced it (just not on the same scale). The solution was to store the same thing more than once. (How many of you have the same picture stored more than once on your computer, or phone, or on your phone AND your computer, AND backed up on some storage media, AND copied to some flash drive...AND posted to social media...AND, AND, AND!
The same data is being stored over and over again. This causes huge, and expensive, and <GASP> environmentally UN-friendly equipment to grow gargantuanly large. Today, people have RAID arrays in their houses, when just 10 years ago 99% of people didn't even know what a RAID array even was! Now scale these discussions up to a City level, a County level, a State level, a National level and...a Global level. I'm sure I don't need to say more. It's an obvious and HUGE problem. Unfortunately, this hasn't even scratched the surface! And here's why...
You see, there's also these sneaky little people who want to know what everyone has on their computer, and in their storage, and in their emails and in their databases...and everywhere else. They don't want to have to sort through the same picture of Mom & Dad's 35th Wedding Anniversary photos sixty-seven time to know what's on your computer...they want to do it once!
HEY, HEY...HAVE WE GOT A SOLUTION FOR YOU!!! It's this new thing we call...THE CLOUD!
I think I'll end Part II right here. I'm pretty sure y'all are getting the idea of where this is headed, and my fingers are getting tired. So I'll just stop now and we'll pick up were we left off in the next episode of...Part III - The (DARK) Cloud.
---------------------------------- END PART II -----------------------------
To be continued...
Every one of us reading this watched what happened next. Maybe not the whole time, but certainly parts of it. It was just like buying a PC or a laptop...by the time you got it home and unboxed, there was a new model already out. In other words, technology advanced at a seemingly rapid rate. The same advances happened in the networking world. Why? Because as computers became more powerful, people could do more with them, and when people could do more they needed to share more...and so on, and so on.
Now, I haven't skipped over, or forgotten about, ol' Algore creating the Interwebz, but really the Internet was just another form of networking so if good ol' Al hadn't personally invented the internet himself (all by his lonesome self, with no help from anyone else on planet Earth...AT ALL!), well, someone would have. This is how we all (should) know that Algore really DIDN'T create the Internet. The Internet is really just a logical networking conclusion. A solution to a problem. Despite what others may suggest, this is all the Internet is, just a means of connecting one device to another. Oh sure, there were some very clever inventions in addressing and networking technology (that Algore also did NOT invent), and there are even some continuing today. And, these will continue in the future...oh boy, will they!! Bottom line, the "Internet" is just a subset of the networking discussion as a whole (and this is important to remember for later).
Anyway, the point is; computers got more powerful, and networking got more powerful, and with the advent of cellular technology, networking infrastructure grew exponentially. It's what happened next that TPTB did NOT expect.
One day, somebody somewhere asked the question..."Ummmm, let's just say, hypothetically of course, I wanted to shut the whole Internet down...how would I go about doing this?" Of course, it wasn't just one person, and it wasn't just one question; there were actually millions of positive and negative questions like this. Things like..."How would we PREVENT the Internet from being shut down?"...and many millions of others. The point here is, there was a point in time where it became apparent that no one person over government had "control" of what we call the Internet now days. It was resilient, just as office networks were, just as WANs were, and it was all growing at an exponential pace. In fact, compute and networking was growing at such a rapid pace that it quickly became apparent that 'compute' power and networking were no longer the bottleneck in the information age...storage was.
Now, the topic of storage is a very complex topic because when we start talking about the quantities of data in play it's no longer just another RAID storage array, or even 1,000 of them...or even 1,000,000 of them. Storage quickly becomes an absolutely massive problem, and there is no easy solution. Why? Well, storage is big, and storage is heavy, and storage is hot, and storage is very, very, expensive! Compute becomes easy, and networking becomes easy...and storage becomes very HARD!
So, what was the industry's solution? LOL...it was very inefficient, and everyone reading this has experienced it (just not on the same scale). The solution was to store the same thing more than once. (How many of you have the same picture stored more than once on your computer, or phone, or on your phone AND your computer, AND backed up on some storage media, AND copied to some flash drive...AND posted to social media...AND, AND, AND!
The same data is being stored over and over again. This causes huge, and expensive, and <GASP> environmentally UN-friendly equipment to grow gargantuanly large. Today, people have RAID arrays in their houses, when just 10 years ago 99% of people didn't even know what a RAID array even was! Now scale these discussions up to a City level, a County level, a State level, a National level and...a Global level. I'm sure I don't need to say more. It's an obvious and HUGE problem. Unfortunately, this hasn't even scratched the surface! And here's why...
You see, there's also these sneaky little people who want to know what everyone has on their computer, and in their storage, and in their emails and in their databases...and everywhere else. They don't want to have to sort through the same picture of Mom & Dad's 35th Wedding Anniversary photos sixty-seven time to know what's on your computer...they want to do it once!
HEY, HEY...HAVE WE GOT A SOLUTION FOR YOU!!! It's this new thing we call...THE CLOUD!
I think I'll end Part II right here. I'm pretty sure y'all are getting the idea of where this is headed, and my fingers are getting tired. So I'll just stop now and we'll pick up were we left off in the next episode of...Part III - The (DARK) Cloud.
---------------------------------- END PART II -----------------------------
To be continued...