Everything is in the cloud!

Two IT professionals somehow manage to hold a conversation. But of late, conversation between an IT professional and a non-IT person has become impossible! It is as if, one is from Venus and the other from Mars. The IT industry has always had its unique jargon. That is understandable, but today, they are taking over words of everyday use and giving it an IT spin and thereby, completely confusing the rest of us. The most bandied about word in IT circles is “Cloud”.

Never make the mistake of asking an IT professional about the job he does. His typical reply is- “I am a Cloud Architect!” His response leaves you dumb-founded. You wonder if he builds castles in the air! A meteorologist appears the closest fit and you beat around the bush. You get more clouded when he says he works entirely from home. You try to steer the conversation to familiar terrain like Cricket and Bollywood. It is unsuccessful. Within a few sentences, he says, “These days, movies are also streamed from the cloud."

Seeing the conversation going nowhere, you finally pop the question, “What is cloud?” He stares at you incredulously as if asked to clarify the concept of addition in Arithmetic. He is at a total loss of words. He fumbles, “Well, cloud is cloud! All the data was co-located earlier isn’t it? It is all moving to the Cloud. These days, everything is in the cloud!”

You feel like telling him, “My dear friend, I have no clue what “data” is, leave alone it being co-located! The only cloud I know is the one in the sky. And presently, I am just as lost as Wordsworth, when he wrote, “I wandered lonely as a cloud!”

Unwittingly, you have now given your friend a free hand. “There is no technology company that can survive without a cloud story!” he says with an air of finality. You have half a mind to unleash your grandmother at him to continue this conversation! She is sure to grill him, “When we had cloud stories like "Meghaduta" written a 1000 years ago, what better cloud story are you going to write now?”

Wryly you joke, “Looks like we can solve world hunger with cloud. It is the solution for everything!” The friend is on cloud nine! “Exactly! How did you know?” In his excitement, he might even hug you! The writing is on the wall- IT and non-IT are as apart as East and West. And it is rightly said, East is East and West is West and the two shall never meet. Or maybe, they will meet! You guessed it right, in the cloud!