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Hi everyone,

Recently I was part of a Dutch government session on the formulation of the Dutch Digitalization Strategy (“NDS”), in which it was noted that to many people “the cloud” is not a well defined thing. Perhaps a singular blob even. And lots of people also opined that Europe has no position at all in that blob.

And while we lack many of the things that Amazon, Microsoft and Google offer, there is a lot that is available outside the US. And this could be used to our advantage.

Over the course of a few weeks I’ve talked to many cloud users & cloud operators about what they offer, and how these things differ.

From this came a potentially useful list of (non-)cloud usages:

  1. No cloud: own data center, own servers (computers). Requesting a (virtual) server can easily take weeks.
  2. The smallest form of the cloud: “renting working servers.” Saves you the trouble of managing a data center and buying servers.
  3. One step further: you don’t rent servers but computing power. Your software runs on someone else’s capacity. “The cloud” provides as much computing power as needed; it never “runs out.” This saves having to worry about capacity during peak loads. (“Containers as a Service”)
  4. One level higher: your software runs on someone else’s capacity, but it also uses ready-to-use managed services like databases. Saves you the need for a database administrator.
  5. If you take this further, you end up with software that mostly runs on these managed services, including advanced ones that aren’t available everywhere in the same way (e.g., “AI language models”). Saves a lot of management effort and expertise. (often called “Cloud Native”)
  6. The final step: you no longer run software at all; instead, you consume “word processor as a service”—the entire program is delivered as a service. The only thing left for you to do is “functional management”; no one needs to manage/operate the system anymore. MS 365 is the prime example of this. (“Software as a Service”)

At the top of this ladder, you have a lot of work but also total control. At the bottom, you have almost no technical work anymore (“everything fully taken care of”), but you are completely tied to a vendor and can never leave. The “specialized services” in 5 and 6 are different everywhere and not interchangeable.

I have now translated this page into English as well, as it might have broader (European) use. I hope the post The (European) cloud ladder: from virtual server to MS 365 could be of use to you.

I’d also love to hear if this explanation works for you, or if you think I’ve got it wrong.

Thanks!

Bert