Cloud Computing with the Windows® Azure™ Platform

Chapter 1. Surveying the Role of Cloud Computing

The term cloud computing implies access to remote computing services offered by third parties via a TCP/IP connection to the public Internet. The cloud symbol in a network diagram, which initially represented any type of multiuser network, came to be associated specifically with the public Internet in the mid-1990s. As an example, the following is the first paragraph of Wikipedia's definition of cloud computing as of mid-January 2009:

Cloud computing is Internet ("cloud")-based development and use of computer technology ("computing"). It is a style of computing in which resources are provided "as a service" over the Internet to users who need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure ("in the cloud") that supports them.

Gartner defines cloud computing as

Scalable, IT-related capabilities provided as a service on the Internet.

The preceding definitions encompass almost all common Internet-based activities, ranging from individuals sending e-mail messages and viewing Web pages to retailers processing credit and debit card charges for online purchases. Google CEO Eric Schmidt narrowed the definition a bit in an August 9, 2006 interview by Danny Sullivan at the Search Engine Strategies Conference (transcribed at http://bit.ly/wday4, www.google.com/press/podium/ses2006.html):

What's interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model, and you all are here because you are part of that new model. ...