To me, Cloud stands for 'a service of which you don't know how it works'.
People have been drawing the Internet as a cloud for many, many years. No one knows how his packet actually gets delivered and that's what makes it so powerful. Even this simple piece of text goes through an intricate combination of radio waves, copper and fiber criss-cross through the world. but... I don't have to worry about any of it! All I have is this dead simple IP interface to my NIC (or URL interface to my browser) and I don't have to worry about whatever kind of nasty stuff goes on behind it. That is the most powerful idea in the history of information technology.
Cloud Computing is simply applying the principle to computing infrastructure. I don't know how EC2 works, I don't know where they get their machines, I don't know where they get their power, I don't know where they put my instances, I don't know who's managing the cabling, ... and I'm a happier man because of it.
People have been drawing the Internet as a cloud for many, many years. No one knows how his packet actually gets delivered and that's what makes it so powerful. Even this simple piece of text goes through an intricate combination of radio waves, copper and fiber criss-cross through the world. but... I don't have to worry about any of it! All I have is this dead simple IP interface to my NIC (or URL interface to my browser) and I don't have to worry about whatever kind of nasty stuff goes on behind it. That is the most powerful idea in the history of information technology.
Cloud Computing is simply applying the principle to computing infrastructure. I don't know how EC2 works, I don't know where they get their machines, I don't know where they get their power, I don't know where they put my instances, I don't know who's managing the cabling, ... and I'm a happier man because of it.