Cloud Computing

Editor: Christof Ebert

software technology
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Ve c t o r C o n s u lt i n g S e r v i c e s

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ch ristof.eber t @ vector.com

Up in the Air: Moving Your Applications to the Cloud
Panos Louridas
In the old days of telecommunication, a cloud symbolized the Internet. Today, that symbol has evolved to focus on shared resources—software and information provided to computers and other devices on demand. Cloud computing offers many benefits, such as flexibility and instant access to the latest data and applications. But there are also risks, such as the dependency on high-availability, high-performance network connections, and—not least—security and privacy. This month, Panos Louridas introduces the major technologies for utilizing the cloud. He’s written a primer with tons of insight and some suggestions for finding out more about a huge, complex topic. I look forward to hearing from both readers and prospective authors about this column and the technologies you want to know more about. —Christof Ebert

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IEEE SOFT WARE

ype oils the wheels of IT, and cloud computing is currently among its most-hyped topics. Consultants, industry reports, business magazines, blogs, and books are trying to tell developers what cloud computing is. At the same time, cloudinfrastructure providers are eager to extol the virtues of a new computing and programming model and the benefits you could accrue by getting on board. In The Cloudspotter’s Guide (Sceptre, 2006), author Gavin Pretor-Pinney writes:
Leonardo da Vinci once described clouds as ‘bodies without surface’, and you can see what he meant. They are ghostlike, ephemeral, nebulous: you can see their shapes, yet it’s hard to say where their forms begin and end.

work diagrams, where it indicated the boundary of network interconnections. The cloud-computing paradigm is characterized by ■ transactional resource acquisition. Upon request, users receive immediate access to computational and storage resources... [continues]

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