Definition of Cloud Computing
We have heard a lot about cloud computing recently, but what exactly is it? After a lot of sales pitches, and various lingo thrown around, I finally found this article (http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v15.doc) that breaks it down into these 5 key items:
- On-demand self-service
- Broad network access
- Resource pooling
- Rapid elasticity
- Measured Service
If you have started virtualizing your environment and use web applicaitons at all, you probably have most of these features – but it is important to have all to properly scale up and out.
An example of the reasoning why you want all of these components is from http://www.oracle.com/dm/offers/fy11/2_powering_new_generation_cloud_implementations.pdf where the transitions from a silo environment to a cloud environment.
