I could say we have all been doing cloud computing ever since we started using web applications on the internet, i don’t mean websites….no… i mean real applications that run in a browser and are launched from a
server somewhere on earth.

Started this piece some weeks bach…but dint complete it. Now i am forced to do so…. Got this assignment from one of my lecturers…and one of the questions says i should differentiate between “Cloud Computing” and “Internet Networking”… and my mind went…”Is there any direct relationship between this two concepts?”…
Even google confirmed it..there is really none. Querying google with “Differences between Cloud Computing and Internet Networking” i got more results on differences between Grid computing and Cloud computing….not a single link talked about Internet Networking. You could Look it up yourself..here is the link…

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=differences+between+cloud+computing+and+internet+networking&meta=&rlz=1I7SNYS_en

Just before the assignments…i had done some look ups on the topics…just got the basic concept of it until i found a book i got thru a torrent link…… I have often seen in some networking annotations, the internet being represented as a cloud..’cos really the internet is simply a network of very large networks, and when all the pcs on the internet are interconnected…we get a cloud of cimputers computers.

Now, the idea is this…since all the computers are inter-networked, of which there are some that are high-end i.e Servers with Large HDDs, high processing speed, generally built for an enterprise environment, it can happen that some of these super computers can lend/rent/give their resources (hard disk space, processing power, software usage) as a service to anyone who needs ‘em.
Now, anyone who subscribes to this services is consumer, and really does not have to actually buy all the softwares needed to use his/her computer. This is call Software as a service (SaaS) and the use of the physical resources, so to say is called Infrastructure as a service (Iaas).
With this, a consumer can get service from a full computer infrastructure through the Internet. Internet-based services such as storage and databases are part of the IaaS.
Other types of services that can be subscribed to are Platform as a Service (PaaS). PaaS offers full or partial application development that users can access, while SaaS provides a complete turnkey application, such as Enterprise Resource Management through the Internet. it is like renting computing services..u pay monthly if your service provider deems it so well to charge you.

Cloud Computing is computing off-premise or in other words, on other peoples infrastructure with no restrictions of the platform. Amazon’s is the leader is this space with EC2( computing power) and S3 (disk storage) as they deliver Infrastructure as a Services. Some other companies like oracle also deployed their CRM software on the Cloud.

So, Cloud computing is really a good-old concept we all are familiar with…but REDEFINED….it’s a nice thing..at least i can hope to run my windows 7 on the cloud one day.

Cheers!!!

-dwk