One of the hottest buzz-words in tech communities today is “cloud computing.” When someone unfamiliar with the term hears that, there's a plethora of images that could be invoked. Certainly, the term sounds like something from a sci-fi novel from the 1990's. In fact, the idea has been around for a long time under different names or with no name at all. The general concept behind cloud computing is that you can remotely access computing resources (disk space, processing power, applications, etc) via a web browser. Now, that sounds like standard web hosting where you upload your data and access it from anywhere. That's because standard web hosting is the first step towards an end-game of total cloud computing.
Let's look at where cloud computing is now and where it's headed in the future.
SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software licensing model where the developer creates an application and rents its use to the customer, and it is the most common form of cloud computing found today. SaaS is considered cloud computing because the end-user doesn't need to install an offline application, the developer handles all updates, and everything is accessed through a web browser. An example of SaaS would be a Point-of-Sale system which is hosted on a server where shops can access it online to do business.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a newer form where developers can create applications on a host's platform (through the web) and offer them up to their own customers as SaaS apps. An example of this is Google's App Engine. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) allows customers to rent hardware and management services on a scalable model where they pay for only the resources they consume. In essence, it's like having a managed, virtual private server on a scalable price.
These three services are all parts of the future of cloud computing. Right now, most people only store non-critical files on a server or files they want others to have access to. What if our concept of the personal computer was entirely shattered, and a new paradigm arose?
The Future of Cloud Computing
Imagine a small, light-weight computer that had the power of a stack of servers. It's not that big of a dream as technology pushes forward—we already have cell phones that would put early desktop computers to shame. The issue with portable devices has always been a fight between size, resources, and power consumption. What if the end-user device only needed to be able to display video and transmit input?
That's the future of cloud computing—where the processing power, data, operating system, and everything else is on the server, and your hand-held device is really just a dumb-terminal into the cloud that displays what you would see if you were right there. OnLive has already announced that, to a degree, the technology will be available to us. Their new cloud gaming platform will allow you to hook in their hardware, and you could play the best games on the market in top quality by streaming the audio/video to your TV or PC while their server farm does all of the work. Now, apply that concept to every-day computer use, add absolute mobility, and you can see where the future of hosting and personal computing is headed.
Post new comment