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Recently I gave a presentation about cloud computing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to ARMA, the records management folks. It was a fun time – my job was to explain the basic ideas behind cloud computing and hardware virtualization to a room full of nontechnical people. I wanted it to be easy to grasp, so I reached for metaphors – virtualization software is like the thin candy shell around M&M’s – the chocolate is your operating system – that kind of thing. I talked about how virtualization worked, what cloud does, and even used Monopoly money with a couple volunteers to talk budgets.

After I left, I knew I’d done a good job explaining the technical and budgetary concepts of cloud computing, but that wasn’t the only goal I set for myself before I headed out there. I also wanted the people I spoke with to understand why cloud is awesome, and why it’s the future.

Cloud is a Utility
Cloud is a managed utility, just like the power company, but for computing. They power company gives you electricity and ensures service continuity.  Instead of keeping an electrical engineer on your staff for power outages, you call the power company. That’s why you pay them, to give you electricity and to take care of things for you. Cloud is the same. You pay a company for computing power and they manage it for you.

Recycle Your Hardware
The other reason cloud computing is so exciting is because it allows you to run your business with no hardware except for low-footprint access devices – laptops, desktops, thin clients, whatever you want to use. Even small little netbooks will do – the access devices don’t matter – they can be built cheap and will last for years.

You don’t need servers or storage devices or firewalls or any other expensive hardware. You don’t need a server closet anymore. All that hardware can be recycled. You don’t need onsite technical staff to keep all that expensive hardware running. You don’t need to pay high power and cooling costs. All you need is something with a keyboard and a screen.

Cloud is the Future
The endless march toward the future has always been a march toward specialization and aggregation. Cloud computing is no different, it’s based on an economy of scale – it eliminates redundancies and gets more efficient the more people join, which means it gets better and cheaper the more people use it. Beyond the technical aspects, the zeal for progress is something I tried to inspire in the ARMA folks and a notion I’d like everyone to embrace. Technology is a great tool – we should use it to improve our businesses and our lives.