So many of our services these days are ‘cloud based’. Ever wondered what it feels to be cloud-based? Well, I know, because I’m a librarian, and I live in Solothurn, a small town in Switzerland which hides under a thick cloud (locally referred to as ‘Näbu’, i.e. ‘Nebel’) for about two thirds of the year – see picture.
‘Cloud-based computing’ has become a buzzword amongst system vendors, and it seems to make some colleagues shudder with awe. But it really is just a rather nebulous way of trying to stir up a hype for externally hosted LMS and other big systems which end users then often access via their web browser rather than a client. Open Source systems such as Koha have worked in this way for a decade and a half – long before their commercial competitors came up with their foggy idea of ‘The Cloud’ as another marketing gimmick.
Gerhard Bissels's Weblog 