According to Merriam Webster, an Itch is "to have a restless desire or hankering for something." This blog will share updates and insights on the "Cloud Computing" space, as well as my own restless desire to provide some clarity within a really foggy market... clouded mostly by disparate vendor messaging along with some emerging technologies and standards.
A very widely cited report from Berkeley defines cloud computing as having 3 key elements: the illusion of limitless resources, the elimination of upfront commitment, and the ability to pay-per-use. I'd offer these along with a couple other common criteria that help define what Cloud means: services connected-to over a network connection, typically the Internet, and Immediacy or fast-time to-solution.
For many managed service vendors, cloud computing is a circa 1999 ASP offering with new messaging. But there are many others who are incorporating completely virtualized infrastructures, offering new classes of web-based services and in some way delivering innovation that moves the industry forward. I'll do my best to take a moment now and then and share info on this latter group as I run into them during my work.
I'm eager to start this conversation - let's make this an active and mutually beneficial forum on Cloud Computing. Thanks! Mike Harding
