“Deep Thought once predicted that one day an even greater computer would be built — one capable of discovering the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
And indeed. The mostly harmless humans tamed the smartest creatures in the universe — the clicky mice.”
 
— From Ford Chrysler’s unpublished draft for the entry ‘Earth’

In the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy, there exists a small, obscure blue-green cloud instance, spinning through space and integration challenges.

On this instance—mostly harmless—I am trying to make sense of a system that claims to orchestrate, integrate, and elevate... but mostly obfuscates.

At the same spacetime coordinates, there happens to be a company with which I’ve had the honor of collaborating for years on data integration. This company recently decided to answer the call of the early 21st-century deity—the almighty "Cloud".

Thus, management launched the "Journey to Cirrostratus" initiative and resolved to expel the long-standing integration platform—let’s call it OFF (Old FaithFul). This platform, while no longer fashionable, possessed such outdated features as speed, maintainability, clarity, CLI, GUI, available actual source code, and direct 24/7 support without a call center.

Despite the understandable reluctance to upgrade—fearing that a newer version might introduce more bugs than it fixes—OFF still worked. In fact, its OFF-NG version had already embraced cloud-native features like Kubernetes, no-code interfaces, and even backward compatibility.

Yet, for their cirrostratal ambitions, they chose OIC—the Orchestrated Illusion Circus. Because once you go O’Racul, you go all O’Racul.

By a curious twist of fate, I’ve found myself aboard this journey as well, and I’ve decided to share dispatches from the frontlines of this replatforming expedition—one seemingly powered by a firm belief in infinite improbability.
I must note that I was gently nudged into this by a rather mischievous friend who appears to have witnessed more than one such experiential voyage, and more importantly, possesses the uncanny ability to translate my notes, originally written in my native tongue, into a somewhat more universally decipherable language. The result is such a florid language that I often need to stick a babel fish in my own ear just to understand what I originally meant.

As a completely unexpected side effect, the little fish — fluent not only in the cacophonous Vogon language but also in the cheerful Earth-bound doublespeak — keeps whispering into my ear that I should first and foremost reflect on the meaning of translating self-assured marketing slogans into a more realistic dialect… one that better reflects what one might encounter on an average working day:

  • 🧞‍♂️ Customer-driven innovation – A promise a day keeps the stakeholder at bay.
  • 💸 Low-code for everyone – Especially for those who have no idea what they’re getting into.
  • 🌐 Seamless integration across worlds – Mainly with the fossilized software landscape of yesteryear.
  • 🚀 Rapid deployment – achieved through countless glorious days of bug-hunting in a thrilling enterprise edition of Whack-a-Bug™, the clicker game where bugs multiply like particles in a nuclear reactor.
  • 🧠 Artificial Intelligence – Now featuring round-robin clicks-per-minute metrics!
  • 📊 Clear monitoring – Where errors are easily hidden in manager-friendly dashboards.
  • 🔐 Enterprise-grade security – Even OIC doesn’t trust OIC.
  • 🧩 Modularity and reusability – Bugs proudly replicated across all modules.
  • 😱 Vast community – Of confused users posting desperate cries for help.
  • 🏪 24/7 support – Where Level 1 in Bangalore courteously refuses your plea for assistance.

That’s all for the intro – next time, I’ll descend from the lofty acronym heights of CEO, CFO, CIO, and CTO down to the more humble, developer level. Although... even the high flyers might enjoy approaching it in the spirit of: “Everything We Always Wanted to Know About OIC (But Were Afraid to Ask).”

Disclaimer:

This text is satirical and intended for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, organizations, or products is purely coincidental. The author does not express any opinion—positive or negative—regarding the technical or commercial qualities of the mentioned products, nor towards any specific software, service, or organization.

All mentioned names, brands, and products are trademarks of their respective owners. Their appearance in this text is solely for purposes of parody and humor.

The author disclaims any responsibility for how this text might influence your decision-making or professional relationships.

If you find this text offensive, we recommend looking at something more adorable instead (e.g., cumulus clouds or baby animals on the internet).

Disclaimer to the Disclaimer:

This disclaimer is also satirical in nature and is intended to clarify that any statements, assumptions, or interpretations presented in the preceding text are part of a broader context of humor and should not be taken seriously, nor considered legal or technical advice.

If you have any doubts, we recommend reading this disclaimer again and then abandoning any attempt to find logic—because there is none to be found.