Behind the Cloud Buzz

Imagine scaling up instantly to massive capacities to meet changing needs. Then imagine doing it on the Web, without having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel, or license new software. That is cloud computing!

Cloud computing is all about efficiency. It provides a way to deploy and access everything from single systems up to massive amounts of IT resources, on demand, in real time, at an affordable cost. Forward-looking companies of all types are now looking at this model to simultaneously reduce infrastructure costs and increase computational capabilities.

Since the best cloud strategies build on concepts and tools that developers already know, clouds have the potential to redefine the relationship between IT and the developers and business units who depend on it. IT gains new efficiency and points of control while their customers gain access to services with a new level of simplicity and control.

The underlying concept of Cloud Computing dates back to 1960 when John McCarthy opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility"; indeed it shares characteristics with service bureaus which date back to the 1960s. The term cloud had already come into commercial use in the early 1990s to refer to large ATM networks. By the turn of the 21st century, the term "cloud computing" had started to appear, although most of the focus at this time was on software-as-a-service.

Amazon.com played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centres after the dot-com bubble and, having found that the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements, providing access to their systems by way of Amazon Web Services in 2002 on a utility computing basis.

The year 2007 saw increased activity, technology providers and a number of universities embarking on large scale cloud computing research projects, and it is around this time that the term started gaining popularity in the mainstream press. In August 2008, Gartner observed that "organisations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" and that the "projected shift to cloud computing will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and in significant reductions in other areas."

Why do Cloud Computing?
One of the obvious reasons is to get better utilization out of the computing resources you have. A key attribute of cloud computing is how it changes economics. You only pay for what you use, and rates are typically lower than the equivalent cost of building and supporting these services internally. Cloud computing is not just about hardware it is also a programming revolution.

Agile, easy-to-access, lightweight Web protocols—coupled with pervasive, horizontally scaled architecture—can accelerate development cycles and time-to-market with new applications and services. Cloud computing can usher in a new era of productivity if developers build on platforms designed to be federated rather than centralized.





Even while IT is being asked to contain or reduce costs, demands from the business continue to rise. Workloads such as streaming content, High-performance computing (HPC) applications, rich customer Web experiences require massive compute and storage resources and also experience sudden surges and spikes in demand — they simply operate at a scale that is beyond the capacity of traditional IT infrastructure. Cloud computing offers a solution.

While cost-cutting moves may dominate the headlines this year, businesses will be focusing on making wise investments that both reduce costs and enable them to better leverage technology.

Here is what Cloud Computing can offer:

Reducing Capital Expenditures
Cloud computing makes it possible for companies to convert IT costs from capital expense to operating expense through technologies such as virtualization.

Cutting the Cost of Running a Datacenter
Cloud computing improves infrastructure utilization rates and streamlines resource management. For example, cloud computing allows for self-service provisioning through APIs, bringing a higher level of automation to the data center and reducing management costs.

Eliminating Over-Provisioning
Cloud computing provides scaling on demand which, when combined with utility pricing, removes the need to over-provision to meet demand. With cloud computing, companies can scale up to massive capacities in an instant - without having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel, or license new software.

Increasing Agility
Cloud computing accommodates change like no other model, and can also provide a wider selection of more lightweight and agile development tools, simplifying and speeding up the development process.

Accelerating Cycles
The cloud computing model provides a faster, more efficient way to develop the new generation of applications and services. Faster development and testing cycles means businesses can accomplish in hours what used to take days, weeks, or months.

All cloud computing deployments have a few things in common. At the highest level, they are a means of delivering IT resources as a set of well-defined services. Just as electric utilities gain efficiency by limiting your options for voltage and frequency, clouds gain efficiency by doing a small number of services very well. Of course this means that some applications would not fit a particular cloud, but that is the important trade-off.

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