Overcoming Fear of the Cloud

Dr. McCloud here to talk about fear of the cloud. Cloud computing is both new and big. This generates reactions ranging from fear to doubt to outright skepticism in some people. This is natural as people struggle to get a handle on just what it is and what it means. How many big ideas of the past that we now take for granted in our everyday lives were initially greeted with skepticism or even outright mockery? Quite a few.

"Fear of clouds" existed before cloud computing ever came on the scene, and is known as nephophobia. Interestingly, there are quite a few parallels between this real-world phobia, the fear of clouds, and its newer cousin, the fear of cloud computing:

• In nephophobia, the patient can experience breathlessness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, the inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack. A select few seem to exhibit many of the same symptoms when confronted with cloud computing.
  
• In nephophobia, the patient has to come to grips that they are fearful of something that poses no actual danger. The same is true of cloud computing: whatever area you're concerned about (data, security, reliability, management) is potentially done better in the cloud computing environment, and with less personal headache to you and your organization. Granted, some of this is true today and some of it will come as cloud computing platforms mature.
  
• Treatment for nephophobia centers around "reality therapy", finding false constructs in the patient's mind and dealing with them, in effect reprogramming the subconscious. Likewise, a reality adjustment is a good treatment for fear of cloud computing: the more you understand about what it really is and how it works, the higher your comfort level is likely to be.
  Fear of the cloud can take many forms, including fear of cloud storage, fear of cloud security, and fear of cloud reliability. In future posts we'll look at these aspects individually.
  

Dr. McCloud is here to put you at ease. Now sit back and relax so I can examine you with my nephoscope... aha, there's your problem!