Cloud Computing: Fact or Fiction?

Cloud Computing: Fact or Fiction? is a new infographic from Devry University helping to explain the basics about cloud computing, and the clear up the common misunderstandings people have about the Cloud.

Cloud computing allows you to store, access and share data from Internet-connected devices in one central location.  As technology careers continue to grow across the U.S. and cloud computing creates nearly 14 million jobs by 2015, the Cloud is more important than ever.  Here are the fact you need to know about the Cloud - and the fiction than many believe.

This is a really clean and easy-to-read design, with a great color scheme.  The statistics to support each section are good, and clearly sourced in the long list of data sources in the footer.

The data visualizations are a mixed bag.  The doughnuts are easy to read and the percentage bars are clearly visualized as portions of 100%.  The 24% doughnut in the top visualization is wrong.  That will catch many people’s eye, and cast doubt on the rest of the visualizations.  Once you get one data visualization wrong, you lose credibility and people will more closely scrutinize the rest.

Why are other numbers not visualized?  The “cyber attacks” and “people using the cloud” statistics would have been easy to visualize, but now seem unimportant to the reader because they are just shown in text.

The most interesting thing is that I got this promotional, marketing email (image above) from YouSendIt.com highlighting this infographic and showing the top portion with the incorrect visualization.  As far as I know, Devry and YouSendIt are not related in any way, so this is just using someone else’s work for their own purposes.  

Of course, infographics are meant to be shared, but you shouldn’t claim credit for someone else’s work, especially in an email promoting your own commercial services.  By omitting any design credit to Devry in the email, the message implies that the infographic is coming from YouSendIt, so it looks like the YouSendIt designers messed up the data visualization.  The negative impression created by the false visualization will now also create a negative impression of the folks at YouSendIt.  Oops.

Comments

[Joe Newson]

Really useful infographic! I've recently published an article for London's leading software training centre revolving around cloud based storage solutions. Hopefully this could help!

http://www.microsofttraining.net/b/blog/2013/02/which-cloud-storage-is-best-for-me/

[sarah]

Interesting, but I still wouldn't trust 'the cloud' for anything. You may think it's safe and of course proponents of the cloud will tell you it is, but thats because they're selling it to you. The fact is that nobody can guarantee it's security now or ever. Any data you store there is not under your control, and as they say, accidents happen. Right now the cloud is relatively new, but sooner or later, some dodgy authority somewhere will decide to rife through someone's data, at will, and there is nothing to stop them. The cloud companies have no power and cannot guarantee that your data will always be secure, and if there was a breach they probably would deny it.

I think the whole concept is a big con. Get people used to storing all their data on the cloud, and once they've settled into a blind trust, then, by accident, this data can be scanned for profit or control. Access can be denied, the data can go missing, and so forth - all this when you could store your data on your computer for free.

[bodHOST]

@ Sarah

Cloud solutions generally work well and meet a very broad range of needs - see the success of Amazon solutions in the field of public IaaS, Salesforce for Google in the areas of PaaS and SaaS. The barriers to adoption remain when it comes to applications and business critical systems.

Paul

[Joe]

I think the clouds great my business recently made the switch to the cloud and ive never looked back the process of accessing company documents and updating them is great, its just makes things a lot simpler and faster! im sure the cloud is going to grow bigger than anyone thinks!

[Ian]

"51% believe the weather has an impact on cloud computing" - hilarious.

In all seriousness, though, you can understand why people find cloud computing confusing. It's not the most simple thing to understand. I mean, explaining a virtual server to someone not technically minded is a real challenge for a start.

[Alana]

Thanks for this clear infographic. I love how it's able to take complicated statistical figures and outline a concept that has most of us confused. I think most people have used the cloud but don't know it as it is. For instance, if you've used Google Drive, Zoho and similar products, then you've already used the cloud. I think that the future of the internet is cloud-based due to the limitless possibilities it has for storage, sharing and collaboration.

[Donald Quixote@College America]

I really love using clouds, they're extremely convenient and easy to use.

[Natalia Garber]

The growth of cloud market has been just a matter of time! I feel quite happy that even smaller RMD companies have worked through and now are equal competitors to the strongest players like Google, Hostgator, or Mohoro!