So IBM’s, Amazon’s, Google’s, Sun’s, HP’s, Oracle’s, your, and even my clouds are different. But we need a way to integrate these clouds together.

Boomary… javaboom@hotmail.com (a former Sun guy)

is it so that” cloud is definitely NOT a job scheduling and execution platform”. isnt cloud suppose to these tasks as well .the terms of grid and cloud are quite confusing, to me it seem as if cloud is some sort of commercial version of grid , if both concepts are same then why to coin a new term for it

Just for fun, let me counter your argument that cloud computing and grid computing are one and the same–at least without qualification. “Grid computing” means infrastructure for “high performance computing” for many (see http://www.gridcomputing.com), and the cloud is definitely NOT a job scheduling and execution platform.

That being said, I also think the definition of cloud computing is broader than you state. I wrote about this today, but the short-short version is I believe cloud computing is a systems architecture with certain properties focused on service and data deployment and ownership. In truth, though, it is just a little more broad than your definition, and doesn’t dent anything that you said about software architectures.

Now, do I think cloud computing is synonymous with getting your computing services from an “electric grid”-like infrastructure? Oh, yeah.

Wallis makes a great point about the economics of processor usage. If I read him right (between the lines), until technology gets better “the Cloud” might work for small businesses and individuals, but big business will think its too expensive and too risky.

http://blog.jamesurquhart.com/2008/02/engage-cautiously.html

http://www.keystonesandrivets.com/kar/2008/02/cloud-computing.html

“BTW, in my mind “cloud computing” is merely a refresh on “grid computing”. Grid is simply an older term that to many people had certain connotations to it, such as being related to the scientific and academic community. It’s a bit like SaaS being a refresh of the older term Application Service Provider (ASP), which was tainted because so many investors lost money on ASPs during the dot-com bust. See my post Tower of Babel - http://tinyurl.com/22zd9r - for more on this phenomenon.”

I’m not convinced, however, that the term “cloud computing” isn’t a repackaging of grid computing and utility computing, however, even if the context is vastly improved network architectures and virtualized data centers. Your point regarding the development of new infrastructure software by Google, Amazon and eBay is well-made, as each company positions itself to serve vast amounts of information to any connected device.

Our definition for cloud computing comes closer to a precise definition for the term than most out there, though it comes with the cavaet that as with any evolving technology there will necessarily be differences of opinion over specific implementations, as you note in your post.

Wikipedia’s current entry for cloud computing defaults to utility computing, in fact, which delivers one (large) Web community’s consensus on the confluence of the terms.

I agree with you that utility computing is a model, not a technology. We define it as “a service provisioning model in which a service provider makes computing resources and infrastructure management available to the customer as needed, and charges them for specific usage rather than a flat rate.”

Grid computing, the more relevant comparison, is a technology, and a long-standing one. We define is as “applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time - usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data.” To my ears, that’s remarkably similar to cloud computing.

Other key differentiators you cite virtualization, self-healing and SLA-driven architectures. While these technologies have been developed and matured in recent years, do they depart sufficiently from the grid computing architectures of the past to drive a genuine difference?

A post from a fellow editor, Margaret Rouse, explaning computing in a cloud, where she puts the technology in the context of its technological forefathers, makes me wonder.

All that being said, your list of characteristics is thoughtful, useful and intriguing. Thanks for a great read!

-Alex

Is the application you are running == the iron connected to the outlet?
Is the outlet your iron is connected to == the computing power (memory,cpu etc)

Now you dont have to tweak your iron and reset its little microprocessor (if any) often … do you?

However software is not a iron to press your pants