by Allen Holub
The first in a series of hands-on articles by Allen Holub about programming for the public cloud

A friend recently reported a conversation he had with one of those wide-eyed, gee-golly developers who’s half Techie and half Moonie. When asked what he was working on, the speaker came back with, “cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud,” and my friend said, “but, what if …,” to which the speaker replied, “cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud,” to which my friend said, “but that won’t work because…,” to which the developer responded, “cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud” — and so it went. Many use “cloud” as a synonym for “good.” Cloud architectures indeed have a lot going for them, but they’re not a panacea, and you need to know what you’re doing to jump to the cloud successfully.

This article both discusses general cloud-related issues and looks specifically at both the Amazon and Google cloud architectures. Subsequent articles will be more practical, delving deeply into code that comprises cloud-based applications, but let’s start with some background.

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