What is your favourite cloud computing quote?

Quotes are a simple yet powerful to illustrate and distil a more complicated idea or concept. So I was amused when I read these 5 cloud computing quotes, including internet pioneer Marc Andreessen. A quick search also revealed some good ones here.

My favourite quote is probably one I heard at INTEROP Las Vegas last spring: “Stop thinking about your servers as pets, and start thinking about them as cattle.” Although slightly harsh, it illustrates that cloud computing requires a completely new level of thinking when it comes to managing the infrastructure. When it comes to cloud, you just can’t put all your eggs in one basket and create a few big, fat servers with full-redundancy. You have to create applications and platforms that are designed to fail, so that if one element does breakdown, you can simply throw it out and continue operating as usual. You don’t lose your cattle if you lose one cow.

On the more pragmatic side, at CloudOps we like to say that “Clouds are platforms you build on that are paid for on a consumption/utility basis.” The first part helps distinguish what we consider cloud computing (e.g. platforms like IaaS and PaaS) from a different delivery model for software (SaaS). Secondly, we believe that any cloud service, from compute to storage, load balancing to content delivery, will eventually be made available through a simple interface and accounted for on a per-use, utility model.

So, what’s your favourite cloud computing quote?