What is Cloud Computing?
CloudComputingWatch.com is a site devoted to sharing news and events surounding the rapidly growing world of Cloud Computing. We define Cloud Computing is the umbrella categorization of distributed, on-demand services that use the Internet as their distribution channel.
Cloud Computing is somewhat vague in definition and its true definition has been debated for a while now.
The general concensus around Cloud Computing is that the traditional operating system that we know today is dead in a Cloud Computing world. The Cloud becomes the OS and the devices we own are simply tools to connect to the cloud.
There are many components that make up the Cloud to make it work. Hardware, Infrastructure, Platforms, Data, Software, Security, are all components of the Cloud that work together to solve problems and get things accomplished.
The promises of lower costs, saleability, reliability, reduced energy consumption, and interoperability of Cloud Computing are expected to produce a seismic shift from traditional computing. The hurdles to make these promises a reality such as security concerns and political policies will slow adoption of a Utopian Cloud Computing world.
The first phase toward the Cloud came in the form of the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web was mainly used for requesting and retrieving data. Each website owner needed to worry about the hardware, infrastructure, platform, data, software security, etc. As we move toward a world of Cloud Computing each site owner will be able to utilize the services from other companies who operate services on the cloud to perform these functions for them.
The Web Hosting provider business model was the first to enter the “Cloud” with distributed hardware services. These hosting providers have been around for many years because people realized early on that it was cheaper to utilize a third party to manage your web server hardware.
Hosted email providers have become the face of success for software as a service (SaaS) companies. Everyday new software service providers are proving that living in the Cloud is a profitable world to do business.
One thing is for certain, no one truely knows what computing will look like in 5, 10, 15 years, but I am confident it will look more like a “Cloud”.
As the Cloud becomes more defined we will write about it here at CloudComputingWatch.com