Computer industry has the habit of creating new buzzwords every now and then. The difference is that Cloud computing is not just a hype it is a way of making computing easy.
There are many definitions of Cloud computing. Our definition of cloud computing is the ability to dynamically procure virtual IT infrastructure for software, hardware and services.
What this really means is that small or medium sized enterprises do not need to own the physical servers and infrastructure to host their applications. They can lease virtual private servers for a monthly fee. Using cloud computing, end-users and businesses can work on their data in a “cloud,” which is a virtual environment that includes data centers, services, applications, and the high skilled personnel that work for the IT companies. The “cloud” paradigm presents a huge opportunity for the companies because it allows them to have top quality service without the headache of implementing and supporting high availability server solutions and maintain highly skilled professionals. Cloud computing greatly lowers the running costs of an enterprise. Enterprises can focus on value-adding activities and services for their core business and outsource all the worries and troubles of running a technical infrastructure to the experts in the virtual cloud. [1]
There are three kinds of cloud services that currently exists [2]:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is the low level infrastructure which provides virtual servers, virtual hard disks. An example is Amazon EC2.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): An operator provides an API for other to create web applications or other server intensive applications. An example is Microsoft Azure.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): Company specific web applications or generic applications like Microsoft Office online, Google Docs and more.
Cloud computing is already being used by tens of millions of people every day. We use the cloud when we read our emails online using Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail, using online social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn. Gartner sees a significant growth in SaaS for applications like CRM and ERP by the year 2011. [3]
As a conclusion, Cloud computing is not something new, Eirtight have been creating “Cloud” applications for over 7 years now. At the time they were known as “Client Server” applications, this meant that the main data and logic for the application was on a server and the client, the machine the user sat at, had a simple front end User Interface to the main application. This concept has matured into what is now called Cloud Computing.
Cloud offers a distinct advantage over the classical computing solutions. When the planet is working 24/7 no enterprise can afford not to be in the Cloud.
References
[1] Ko, R. K. (2010). Cloud computing in plain English. Crossroads 16, 3 (Mar. 2010), 5-6. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1734160.1734163 (Accessed: 21 July 2010)
[2] Fouquet, M., Niedermayer, H., and Carle, G. (2009). Cloud computing for the masses. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM Workshop on User-Provided Networking: Challenges and Opportunities (Rome, Italy, December 01 – 01, 2009). U-NET ‘09. ACM, New York, NY, 31-36. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1659029.1659038 (Accessed: 21 July 2010)
[3] Kim, Won and Kim, Soo Dong and Lee, Eunseok and Lee, Sungyoung.(2009) Adoption issues for cloud computing. MoMM ‘09: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1821748.1821751 (Accessed: 21 July 2010)
[4] Wikipedia(2010). Cloud Computing Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing (Accessed: 21 July 2010)
