What is cloud computing?

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saffakanera

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Can some please explain, using examples, what cloud computing is? Isn't it just a marketing buzzword created to overcharge clients for centralized computing?
 
As I understand it, it is systems where your data is stored online rather than on your local machine and sometimes even the applications are run online. So products like Dropbox are an example of storing your data online and Google docs an example of both the data and the application itself being online rather than on your machine.
 
demiurge said:
As I understand it, it is systems where your data is stored online rather than on your local machine and sometimes even the applications are run online. So products like Dropbox are an example of storing your data online and Google docs an example of both the data and the application itself being online rather than on your machine.
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OK, but companies like Citrix have been doing this for years? Why the recent surge in this mode of operation, is this more of a marketing drive, or is it because of recent surges in WAN bandwidth availability, I'm just trying to understand how this is different from old terminal/server models.
 
saffakanera said:
OK, but companies like Citrix have been doing this for years? Why the recent surge in this mode of operation, is this more of a marketing drive, or is it because of recent surges in WAN bandwidth availability, I'm just trying to understand how this is different from old terminal/server models.
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I think it also has to do with providing this storage and these applications as an online internet based service. So it's not just a specific client connecting to a specific server using a propriety protocol.
It's about a service being provided online whereby anyone anywhere can access it and is able to use the service simply by going to a url in their web browser (eg google docs).
 
One of the big differences is that something running on the 'Cloud' has no specific requirement linked to any individual machine.

i.e. In normal Citrix / Terminal Services, you connect to a remote machine, and you run processes on that machine. If that server dies, you have a problem.

In Cloud computing, you submit tasks to a 'Cloud' of processes. Some scheduling algorithm decides where and how this is processed, during that, your processing might be moved to various different physical machines, and depending on the load, you might get allocated more or less resources.

[Very basic, also just describing some aspects of cloud computing vs. old style terminals]
 
Cloud Computing AKA Pie-in-the-sky Computing. Buzzword at the moment with re. to our market due to our overpriced bandwidth.
 
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