Cloud = Outsourcing

Discussion of the cloud seems to be popping up around me daily. Part of it is my own instigation but other people are starting the discussions as well. It is always a lively debate with three sides. There’s very pro-cloud, cloud for specific use cases, and there are the totally anti-cloud people. A member of that political faction contributed the following quote to the meeting’s chat:

Cloud n. /Kloud/ def. - OUTSOURCING

It’s the first time I have been exposed to this opinion in particular but it’s not the first anti-cloud FUD I’ve encountered. My response to that “definition” is as follows:

It’s only outsourcing if you’re unwilling to learn.

Many members of the “anti-cloud” party are stalwart defenders of their silo. They stand defiant in the face of change or needing to learn new technology. Discussions revolving around changing to a different software to replace an obviously bad solution end in incredible resistance. From their perspective moving to AWS takes their job away. I can’t argue that they’re wrong if they insist on tending to the same Nerd Knobs they learned 10 years ago. Their skills are completely transferable and still relevant in any cloud. There are still OSs to patch, storage to provision, firewall rules to set, routes to create, applications to develop. The only change comes from learning the new interfaces and terms.

I’ve always been doing my best to stay two steps ahead. I feel like I’ve used this simile before but working in technology is like being on a moving sidewalk going in the opposite direction. If you walk you stay in the same place and if you stand still you go backwards. The only way to move forward is to run. I am always jumping outside of my silo to learn networking, “cloud”, storage, etc.

So I guess in a way the earlier speaker is correct. If you don’t learn new technologies then you don’t grow your career.