What is cloud computing?

It’s overcast, rain just started spitting against my home office window, and my thoughts turned to the clouds. No, not the airborne harbinger’s of aqueous precipitation, computer clouds…But, what is cloud computing? According to Paul Greenberg, it’s critical to business IT needs, but it’s more than that…

Cloud computing is Internet-based development and use of computer technology. It represents a paradigm shift from users running apps on their standalone, albeit networked, machines. Data is stored “in the cloud” and the programs that run it are also “in the cloud”. It’s like a meta version of the old mainframe computing scheme with dumb terminals connected to a big machine in the basement, but the big machine is the whole of the internet, the cloud.

The underlying concept of cloud computing dates back to 1960, when John McCarthy suggested that “computation may someday be organized as a public utility”. As a metaphor for the internet, the word cloud has been around since at least the early 1990s, but Amazon and Google both claim precedence in the phrase cloud computing and there was a failed trademark bid by NetCentric back in 1997 for the phrase.

If you’re using GMail, Google Docs, Panda Cloud Antivirus, Amazon Web Services, Office online and countless other services that generally run in a web browser rather than as desktop applications, then you’re using cloud computing. And, speaking of Google, it’s recently announced operating system, Chrome OS, will essentially be an operating system that makes the use of its Chrome browser and apps within it transparent and will circumvent the concept of a computer operating system, such as Windows, altogether for many users.

Meanwhile, back to industry expert Greenberg who separates fact from fiction in the following free on-demand webinar on cloud computing available now to qualified professionals courtesy of our partner site. In the paper he explains: How to get started in days, rather than months, how to build your cloud to fit your business needs, and how to control cloud costs. Follow the link and fill in the form, it’s free.

Stacks more on cloud computing

• The Future of The Cloud (thenextweb.com)
• Predicting the Great Cloud Shakeout – Don’t Become CloudKill (java.sys-con.com)
• Thoughts on the Cloud (nofluffjuststuff.com)
• Cloud to suck money out of market, report says (news.cnet.com)
• Cloud Computing – A Really Poor Name (lockergnome.com)
• A Brief History of Cloud Computing (java.sys-con.com)
• Cloud Security 2.0 (java.sys-con.com)
• Does Cloud Computing make sense for large enterprises (horicky.blogspot.com)

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…