[NA-Discuss] Cloud Computing a Trapi

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 6/9/13 8:32 AM, John R. Levine wrote:
>> It's up to the poster to define relevance
> Ah, I hadn't realized the charter of this list included random noise. 

Is there some issue, latent or present, in "cloud computing" (a
marketing term for which the best definitions I'm aware of come from
NIST) for which the Board may, or must, be advised by the NARALO,
directly or via the other RALOs, acting through their directd
representatives to the ALAC?

I don't see it. I see plenty of plays for subscription services, some
of which appear to recover costs by capture and conversion to
fee-based service through cost of transfer (as do some registrars and
all registries), others with monitizing data models, and so on.

Is it addresses? No. Though "cloud" providers do consume blocks of
addresses, they do so indistinguishably from other service providers.

Is it domains? No. Though "cloud" providers to consume blocks of
names, they do so indistinguishably from other service providers.

Is it protocol parameters? No. And besides, the work on very large
data center specific protocols is something challenging to generalize
to a general benefit, or even a possible source of general harm.

So whatever it is it isn't, in my opinion, a candidate issue for which
the Board requires advice.

Unless the Board has authorized the CEO to put a bunch of ICANN
services "in the cloud", in which case the prudence of that internal
use of third-party data services is a candidate issue for which the
Board requires advice.

Failing that, like John, I fail to see the relevance.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon