Software as a service
IDEA No 95
THE CLOUD
Cloud computing is a synonym for distributed computing over a network. It means the ability to run a program on many connected computers at the same time. Its current use originates from the stylized cloud used to depict the internet on computer network diagrams.
Like Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, the Cloud is a figment of our imagination. It doesn’t exist. It’s a useful metaphor for the internet and no more. The term became popular after Amazon introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service in 2006. Like most computer networks, Amazon was using only a fraction of its processing power at any one time. It could not reduce capacity – it needed enough to accommodate occasional spikes – but it ...
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