Introduction: Jan Klincewicz

Greetings. My name is Jan Klincewicz and this is my first blog here. By way of brief introduction, I have worked in the IT industry my entire adult life. Rather than bore you with the excruciating details, I invite you to visit my LinkedIn profile : http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=14026860&trk=tab_pro

Before I begin, let me offer the blanket disclaimer than any opinions, statements, facts, half-truths or bald-faced lies put forth by me here are my responsibility alone, and do not reflect the views, opinions, half-truths (yada yada) of my current or previous employers, educational institutions, religious establishments, etc. I alone take responsibility for what is published under my byline.

For those curious as to how one might pronounce my name (I know there are some of you out there) it is phonetically “Yahn KlinSEVitch.” What does NOT show up on my C.V. is my age (which by law, potential employers cannot ask me to divulge.) I will admit that I have crossed the half-century mark (which of course anyone with an affinity for arithmetic could deduce pretty closely by subtracting 20 from the year I finished undergrad.) If one knew I skipped my Senior year of high school, and that in Quebec, Univerity can be completed in three years, you’d be spot on. I believe this accumulation of decades morally qualifies me to assume the status of “curmudgeon.” I promise not to grouse about the superiority of VMS to the current crop of Operating Systems, or whine that Cloud Computing is “the same as Timesharing like we had back in the 60’s.” My career in IT coincided, essentially, with the birth of the IBM PC, so my perspective comes from the evolution of small, disconnected boxes, to servers, through LANS and WANS, through the Internet and beyond. There are few advantages to aging, but if one has been paying attention, hindsight is one of the few. To quote Yogi Bera, “you can observe a lot by watching.”

As this blog is specifically oriented toward the topic of Cloud Computing, I will do my level best to stay within that realm. Cloud Computing is a subject whose very definition can be (and often is) broadly interpreted. Members of various discussion groups will often tag threads as “tangential” and typically, this really means it is uninteresting to them, or more frequently, of little regard to them because they will not profit from any information contained therein.

This brings me to a starting point that became very evident when Cloud Computing started being discussed in online communities about two years ago. Cloud Computing is viewed very differently by Cloud Consumers and Cloud Providers. Each side obviously has its own agendas, one to save, and the other to make money. But there are plenty of common goals ; efficiency, streamlining of processes, adding value to enterprises and saving energy are all in the interests of both sides.

Finally, to conclude my introduction, I feel it worthwhile to provide a baseline for my own beliefs regarding the fundamental definition of “Cloud Computing.” For the most part, I think American tax dollars were well spent on the National Institute of Standards and Technology two-pager. Although they tend to neglect the financial / accounting aspects of the topic (which is really not their area of expertise anyway, right?) they did a creditable job. So much for introductions. Nice to meet you all. Next week, let’s dig into the real topics.