The Tech World Discovers New Species: The Cloud Architect

Grazed from Wired. Author: Cade Metz.

“I’m a cloud architect,” says Carl Perry, and there’s not even a hint of irony. His business card says the same thing. Perry works for a Los Angeles outfit called DreamHost. The company began life in 1997 as a four-person operation that would set up and host websites for anybody who needed one, but like many web hosts, it has evolved into something a bit different. Following in the footsteps of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, it’s now offering what are commonly known as cloud services — internet services that give you instant access to computing power.

With these services — named after Amazon’s seminal Elastic Compute Cloud — you can set up and host a website all on your own. Or fire up any other software application. Or store virtually unlimited amounts of data…

Carl Perry calls himself a cloud architect because, well, he oversees the creation of these DreamHost services — from servers to networking gear to software. But the title means a bit more than that. These services, you see, aren’t built like traditional web services or other online applications. They’re designed to share a common computing infrastructure with a vast number of outside developers and businesses — and rapidly expand with the needs of these users. This requires an added level of coordination between machines — and some extra attention to cost…

Read more from the source @ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/12/cloud-architect/