Cloud Computing Definition #1

Ph. D. Julio Fernandez Vilas

¿Any comments? jfvilas@gmail.com

So, why do you need a definition of what Cloud Computing is? Do you really need it? Ok, maybe you still don’t know what does Cloud Computing means. Maybe you are an IT specialist of any kind and Cloud Computing is something vague for you. So it is for me, too.

First of all: forget about finding an exact definition of Cloud Computing (CC). There is no standard or publicly coined definition about what CC is. I will try to define it by using several analogies.

Everybody knows what Web 2.0 (W2) is. Right? W2 is an evolution from what can be defined as “dynamic web” (that is: rich web sites where users and companies can perform some kind of e-commerce). I use the words “dynamic web” in order to make a distinction of what in its origin was called “The Web”, just a static web where companies can publish information. Let’s call it web 0.9, or even “Web beta”. Several years after the initial use of web beta, big companies entered the Internet to make business. They saw the web as a new channel to produce new income.

At that moment, “web beta” evolved to a dynamic web, web 1.0, where users can buy goods and services from “web-enabled companies”. Travel agencies, flight companies, books, music, gifts, auctions… Lots of companies came up at an era finally defined as the dot com era.

Ok… What a nice story!!! Let’s continue.

Several years after the web reinvented itself evolving to W2. W2 means free user interaction, means social networks, in general, W2 means freedom to people’s thoughts.

But… what does it happen to web applications? Here is where CC comes into. It can be said that W2 relates to social networks as CC relates to web-enabled companies. That is, CC is the Web 2.0 of business. Or even, one could say that CC is the evolution of B2B.

All these assertions can be accepted. But the problem here is that there is a lot of confusion about CC because of marketing messages.

In order to separate authentic CC approaches from marketing messages coming from companies who wants to stay on the wave, we first build a stratified decomposition of CC. Let’s look at this first picture, with CC three levels.

At the top, “Cloud Services” are services offered to customers (via Internet connections) to different kind of devices. Typically printing services, like HP’s CloudPrinting or SnapFish are being offered like “Cloud Services”.

At the very bottom, cloud infrastructure enclose a set of services that can be used to, for instance, host an application, a server, or any kind of hardware or base software you use these days in your datacenter. Cloud infrastructure has a lot to do with virtualization. For example, VMware, and the EMC’s theories about Public and Private clouds walk this way.

In the middle, applications developed by companies can now benefit from re-using external services (typically exposed as web services) in a pay-per-use model. For example, AWIS (Amazon Web Information Services) or SimpleDB are base software services offered by Amazon Web Services.

From my point of view: Cloud Services, as they are known these days, have no relation with the desired Cloud Computing stack. In fact, most of the cloud services that are being announced everywhere mean taking one step back in Internet evolution. I would rename Cloud Services as Web 1.5. Why?

Printing a picture from your BlackBerry or iPhone via 3G/GPRS and receiving your photos at home is a “cloud service”? No, surely no. Why do I say “no”? Just think about developing such a printing application and try to answer these questions:

• Do I need any kind of virtualization infrastructure to run my application?
• Do I need to use a service from another company to build the application?
• Finally, do I need 2009’s technology to develop my application? Could I have developed my application 8 or 10 years ago?

I expect you to agree with me that a printing application over Internet has nothing to do with Cloud. This is only “Cloud Marketing”.