The Read Aloud Cloud

An Innocent's Guide to the Tech Inside

Forrest Brazeal

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119677659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Computer Science

What is "the cloud"? Is it here or there? Should it be allowed? Should I even care?

Have you ever imagined the internet as a giant Rube Goldberg machine? Or the fast-evolving cloud computing space as a literal jungle filled with prehistoric beasts? Does a data breach look like a neo-noir nightmare full of turned-up coat collars and rain-soaked alleys? Wouldn't all these vital concepts be easier to understand if they looked as interesting as they are? And wouldn't they be more memorable if we could explain them in rhyme? Whether you're a kid or an adult, the answer is: YES!

The medicine in this spoonful of sugar is a sneaky-informative tour through the past, present and future of cloud computing, from mainframes to serverless and from the Internet of Things to artificial intelligence. Forrest is a professional explainer whose highly-rated conference talks and viral cartoon graphics have been teaching engineers to cloud for years. He knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. But he has plenty of words, too.

Your hotel key, your boarding pass,
The card you swipe to pay for gas,
The smart TV atop the bar,
The entertainment in your car,
Your doorbell, toothbrush, thermostat,
The vacuum that attacked your cat,
They all connect the cloud and you.
Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.

As a graduation gift (call it "Oh the Places You'll Go" for engineering students), a cubicle conversation starter, or just a delightfully nerdy bedtime story for your kids, "The Read-Aloud Cloud" will be the definitive introduction to the technologies that everyone uses and nobody understands. You can even read it silently if you want. But good luck with that.

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Chapter 1
WHAT IS “THE CLOUD”?

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,

From up and down, and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall…

I really don't know clouds at all.

—JONI MITCHELL

So the cloud…is my data, like, up in the sky, or what?

Ha, ha, ha! Pass me that bag of chips.

—YOUR UNCLE MIKE

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A WORD TO THE NERD

What Is “THE CLOUD”?

Well, as you've noticed by now, this is a different kind of book about the cloud.

I've been building cloud applications for quite a few years, and I still have trouble explaining to my friends and family exactly what it is I do. In fact, a couple of years ago I realized that I had just kind of given up.

Sample conversation:

• A NORMAL PERSON: “So what do you do for work?”
• ME: “Gargle, gargle.”

This is not because the cloud is so complex and mysterious. Doctors and scientists don't have trouble saying, “I'm a doctor or a scientist,” and their jobs are a lot harder and stranger than mine. I think I just got into my own head.

But I also know I'm not alone. There's a whole industry full of smart and accomplished cloud professionals gargling their way through the dinner parties they totally get invited to, because they never learned the tools to explain what they do. Their fancy computer science degrees taught them to balance binary search trees and negotiate the Border Gateway Protocol but not how to say “I write programs that run on someone else's computers.”

And really, the larger problem is abstraction. It can be hard to explain the building blocks of the cloud because the concepts don't relate to anything in the physical world. We all have some intuitive understanding of why a doctor exists. What exactly does a “cloud architect” build, and why does it matter?

The best way I can think of to explain is to draw a bunch of cartoons.

So I made this book for techie people like me to give to their non-techie friends. Or their children. Or their CEOs. Or just to keep on their desks. No shame in that.

I've tried to write from the perspective of someone who is new to the idea of “the cloud,” beyond a vague understanding that your iPhone stores its pictures there. I hope that by the last page, you will have not only a better understanding of the ways in which cloud affects you as an ordinary consumer but also a broad grasp of how cloud systems are designed, built, and maintained—you know, the work that my colleagues and I are so congenitally unable to explain.

(Side note: Do you know how hard it is to write hundreds of rhymes about the cloud? Of course you don't; you're much too smart to try that. I'm regretting it already, so please be kind.)

These little “Word to the Nerd” sections at the end of each chapter are totally optional. I'll do my best to keep them interesting, but th...