Cloud changes how we deliver applications but we’re still delivering applications

With all the hype around cloud it’s easy to get caught up in deployment models and architectures and how much money it is/is not going to save us and, of course, with the cool factor that always surrounds such innovation. But when we get our heads too far up in the clouds we forget what we’re really doing: delivering applications. Whether it’s thin-client, fat-client, browser-based, client/server, three-tier, n-tier, traditional, .NET, Java EE, or cloud we are still all focused on the same goal: deliver an application.

The prince may look like a frog, but he’s still a prince. The application may be delivered from the cloud, but it’s still the same application.

Regardless of the model, the architecture, and the location we are all still trying to achieve the same thing: deliver applications fast, make sure they’re secure, and keep them available. That’s important to keep in mind because it’s easy to get caught up in the seemingly endless battles of whether private cloud is “real” or not, whether SaaS is a really cloud or not, and even what the basic definition of cloud might be.

What cloud really changes is how we deliver applications, not what we’re delivering – or why we’re delivering it.

It doesn’t matter if your strategy is pure cloud or some strange hybrid of cloud + SOA + traditional + mainframe architectures. If it delivers applications to your users – consumer, partner, supply chain, corporate – and does so in a way that’s fast, secure, and keeps that application available then you’re doing it “right”.

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