The Evolution Of Cloud Computing
What is cloud computing?
Cloud Computing is a kind of process that involves accessing of applications, storage and servers via internet. The process utilizes the remote services of another company in exchange of a fee. The cloud computing allows a company to access and store programs or data virtually (in a cloud) as opposed to on local servers and hard drives.
Types of Cloud Computing
“There are several types of cloud computing.”
There are several types of cloud computing. Here we will not be having a detailed discussion on these types rather we will be only mentioning the names. The types of cloud computing are as follows:
Based on Services
Based on Location
- community cloud
- Public cloud
- Private cloud
- Hybrid cloud
Some Characteristics of Cloud
Cloud has various characteristics and these characteristics are the reason why companies of today prefer cloud for their business operations. The characteristics are mentioned in the points below:
- The agility of your organization can get improved due to the application of cloud computing as technological infrastructure resources get expanded
- Cloud is equipped with a feature of “Device and location independence” which allows you to access systems through web browser regardless of what device you are using or what is your location
- It is much easier to maintain cloud technology especially if compared with other technologies. You do not need to get the cloud application installed on each computer.
- The performance of the cloud application is monitored by the IT experts of the service providers.
- Through cloud application more than one user can work on similar data. This phenomenon can help in the enhancement of your organization’s productivity
- Since the data is centralized in cloud, hence security issues hardly get surfaced.
The Evolution
“The term became highly popular when Amazon introduced the famous Elastic Compute Cloud.”
Cloud technology has never been a onetime phenomenon rather the technology has evolved over time. We have classified this evolutionary process in the headings below:
Origin
There is no historical data which can tell us that how the term Cloud actually originated. According to one research the old programs that sketched schematics related to network enclosed the server icons with a circle. The phenomenon resulted in a cluster of servers which resembled to a cloud. The term cloud computing first surfaced in 1996. The term was first time mentioned in Compaq internal document. The term became highly popular when Amazon introduced the famous Elastic Compute Cloud.
The Era of 1970’s
The concept of time sharing became popular in 1960’s. The concept became popular due to “Remote Job Entry”. The term “Remote Job Entry” in most of the cases was associated with well-known vendors like DEC and IBM. In 1970’s full time sharing solutions were produced. These sharing solutions were launched on platforms like UNIX ports, Multics and Cambridge CTSS.
The Era of 1990s
It was during the 1990’s when the telecommunication companies launched the virtual private network (VPN) services. The service quality of VPN was not the greatest however it surely attracted the users due to its lower cost. The telecommunication companies started to use the cloud symbol in order to denote the point of demarcation. The point of demarcation indicated the responsibilities of the providers and the users. The cloud computing actually enhanced this boundary and covered all the network infrastructure and servers. The computers became diffused and the scientist designed the ways through which large scale computing could be done.
The Era of 2000
Since the year 2000, cloud computing has been there. During the era of 2000 most of the companies specializing in cloud computing got surfaced. Some of the companies worth mentioning in this regard are Google, Amazon and Microsoft etc.
Conclusion
The evolution of Cloud computing has been very slow and gradual. In this article we have tried to summarize this evolutionary process. To know more about cloud evolution, you can refer to this one by Exelanz.