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cloudviews.org has as its main objective to be a place (site and event organization) of promotion and discussion of all technologies that are part of the “Cloud Computing” paradigm.

In his presentation at the Linux symposium, Gerrit Huizenga, from IBM, shared his view about Cloud Computing. He started by saying (or defining) what “Cloud computing” is not. He described a group of technologies or “buzz” words: Utility Computing, Grid Computing, Cluster Computing, Distributed Computing, Provisioning, Application Service Providers, Software as a Service, Hardware as a Service and Software Oriented Architecture, and how they are different of Cloud computing itself.

I may agree with his view but, at the same time, I agree with the view that says that “Cloud Computing” is all those things together.

In other perspectives, there are people that say that “Cloud Computing” will put the processing power of the Internet available to all users, but we cannot forget the fact that a great part of Cloud Computing software uses a lot of local resources and computer power. Usually using the browser as sandbox.

We also have the visionaries, like Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. He has been widely quoted:

In the visionaries group we also cannot forget Nicholas Carr and his inspiring book: “The Big Switch”.

Finally we have the skeptics. I will not mention anyone in particular, because they are rapidly  changing their ideas and they’re nowadays usually the source of interesting views, and they starts to contribute with constructive ideas and solutions.

Cloud Computing is a paradigm or, as I see it, a group of views. Views that are, some times, opposite to each other and,  at other times, complementary. A view could be in the shape of a document, a presentation or a visionary sentence. Most importantly, it could be a software solution, a development platform, or even, an isolated user tool. We can actually say that Cloud Computing is a growing paradigm and that it absorbs all the views that “pop up” every day.

All these things together are making Cloud Computing a strong and viable platform to Service Providers, developers and end users. It increases the power that Internet already has, taking it to a higher level of integration, enhancing user experiences and solution deployment.

Gerrit Huizenga continues his presentation, at Linux symposium, by going deep into more technical details about Cloud Computing and associated technologies. He ends his presentation by saying: “The era of cloud computing is just beginning“. We couldn’t find a more simple and correct phrase to define  the current state of Cloud Computing.

For more detailed views take a look in our “Basic Views” category.

Thanks

Paulo Calçada