How to define cloud computing

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• How to define cloud computing

 

How to define cloud computing

 

The term "cloud computing" is everywhere. From the Conference to the whiteboard of the Enterprise Architecture meeting of industry giants and the notebook of startup company Developers, you can see it. The most frequently asked question today is: "What is cloud computing ?"

Just like many other things in this industry, the answers to this question vary from person to person. Rod Boothby interviewed some people at the Web 2.0 Expo conference and made a short film. Kevin marks, a evangelist at Google opensocial, explains the progress from a package-based network Cloud to a file-based World Wide Web cloud, to an interactive computing cloud. In each case, "Cloud" provides an abstraction of a certain part of the environment, which users do not need to understand or care about. Dan Farber, chief editor of CNET News, mentioned that the current "Cloud" is the storage space for data and applications, and its availability is for developers and users, in the future, it will evolve into "Electric Power ). Other ideas involve how to provide it (such as simplifying its use, simplifying its deployment, and simplifying its operations) to what it is not (such as installed software, specific platforms.

Linda Tucci uses raid as a metaphor to explain cloud computing. In this metaphor, Tucci emphasizes the cost of cloud computing:

When IBM applied for the first patent for this revolutionary concept in 1977, they concerned about performance rather than cost. However, ten years later, it became an indisputable fact that a group of consumer-level "broken disks" could achieve better reliability and performance than independent disks at extremely low costs. It is so cheap that when enough parts are broken, this group of disks can be directly extracted and thrown away.

David Young proposed the concept of "Specifications of cloud computing", which lists nine features of building a platform as a service (PAAs) cloud computing. These features are:

1. Virtual Layer Network Stability
2. Create, delete, and clone instance APIs
3. interoperability at the application layer
4. Status layer interoperability
5. Application Services
6. Autonomy scalability
7. Hardware-level load balancing
8. storage is a service
9. Super User Permissions, if needed

Others discuss how to define cloud computing by discussing what is not cloud computing.

James Governor extracted a "Top 15" list from others' ideas to tell people how to judge whether it is not cloud computing. Governor's opinion is that cloud computing does not need to install software on your computer or have a specific operating system. It is different from grid computing, you do not need to buy server hardware. Tony McCune also lists three criteria that can be excluded from cloud computing. These three are simple web portals that only use virtualization and Microsoft mesh. Based on these three principles, McCune provides a candidate for cloud computing technology.

1. Portal-based Web pages-deployable widgets, portlets, or other elements built on Adobe AIR, Google gears, or even Java applets. These computing elements can be designed to serve a specific computing function, and can be deployed across multiple platforms without the need to care about the underlying infrastructure.

2. autonomous virtual clouds-Amazon Web Services, Microsoft SSDS (when it happens), or vmware-based computing or storage solutions, they provide utility calculations from web connections as needed.

3. Google App Engine, a virtual application server, is an excellent example of how cloud computing will develop. Google's Python implementation and limited APIs won't attract enterprise customers, but it gives us the first truly available "application server in the cloud ". Here, Google's real highlight is its conciseness. Relatively elementaryProgramDevelopers can quickly develop their own applications without worrying about the underlying implementation of the services they use.
Joe McKendrick picked out some criticism of the cloud computing model. McKendrick pointed out Nick Carr's statement about how international political boundaries (such as the UK's investigation power constraints act and China's firewall) will restrict the true use of cloud computing.

Boothby summed up his answer to this question. "The more important question is not what cloud computing is. In other words, what are you going to build ?"