Who invented the term Cloud Computing?

[Reuven Cohen]

Recently I have become aware that a long time analogy I've devised for
explaining cloud computing has been claimed by someone else. The basis
of my cloud computing analogy is that computing capacity like the
development of the early electrical grid is becoming the fundamental
basis for our information based society. Therefore we need a universal
system for the interchange of computing capacity like we have for
power.

Well it appears that no matter how much I complain, the only way to
truly create an analogy these days is to write an old fashion book (on
paper no less). In my recent blog post
(http://elasticvapor.com/2008/05/elastic-computing-brief-history.html)
I attempt to stake my claim or at the very least give some context to
how and why we saw the need for what I called "elastic computing" back
in 2003.

Now that cloud computing is starting to become more mainstream, there
suddenly seems to be a variety of people & companies who are claiming
to have invented the concept of cloud computing. These companies
arrange from SaaS providers, Search Engines to patent trolls. My
question is who was the first to use the term "cloud computing" ?

--
--

Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.
www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

blog > www.elasticvapor.com
-
Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4

[Geoff Brown]

Hi Reuven,

Great mailing list and great topics.

I was heavily involved in Grid Computing, Amazon.com, etc. While
evolving Grid (mixing Semantic Web, etc) I recall having discussions
years ago with Google, IBM, etc ... I mentioned Cloud Computing ( I DO
NOT CLAIM TO INVENT CLOUD COMPUTING AS IT HAS MANY FATHERS AND I AM
NOT ONE OF THEM ). I mentioned Cloud in two parts (1) Evolution from
Grid computing (2) Evolution of HPC and Communications - the context
was Cloud Computing = Computing in the clouds as in UAV, Aeroplanes,
Satellite systems and traditional systems meshed together ... highly
dynamic, highly ad-hoc.

Our work on 5G ( yes ) Telecommunications and Nano-Sats pretty much
play cloud computing as computing in the clouds and not just Grid
redefined.

Geoff Brown
CEO & Founder

m2mi Corporation
NASA Research Park
Building 19, #2063
Moffet Field, CA 94035-127

[Sam Charrington]

Hi Reuven,

 

Maybe Al Gore had something to do with it :-)

 

Sam

[Stuart Charlton]

I don't think anyone can claim 'coinage', as it's been a pretty common
term for 'services on a network', just not a buzzword. Kind of like
how "services" were used before they became SOA and billions of
dollars of capital was thrown at it.

People have been talking about "computing in the cloud" since the
1980's in technical contexts. ("The Network is the Computer")? I
know in the 90's dot-com craze, both the B2C and B2B areas used to
talk a lot about offerings being "in the cloud". And in Grid
computing contexts, sometimes grid services would be spoken of loosely
as "on a cloud somewhere".

It's like the blind wise men feeling out the elephant, trying to pick
a word that will best describe what this amorphous, confusing thing
called "The Web" hath wrought on Traditional IT.

As a buzzword, however, I think the point it began was in Summer 2006,
when Google's Eric Schmidt started championing it:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=369

And, that same month, Amazon EC2 beta was first released:
http://gigaom.com/2006/08/24/amazon-now-offering-computing-on-deman/

... and really hit it again with the release of Carr's "The Big
Switch" in January 2008. (His blog's first mention of it, I think,
was late 2006, talking about, yes, Eric Schmidt's use of the term).

Cheers
Stu

On May 28, 2008, at 8:46 AM, Reuven Cohen wrote:

[Rizwan Mian]

Folks,

After reading wikipedia on cloud computing, Ian foster's post and a post on Grid Gurus; I do not find much differences between cloud computing and computational grid.

'Cloud computing' seems to have gained popularity towards the end of 2007 [1]. I could not find any *academic* literature for 'cloud computing' Google scholar. So, I also wonder where did it originate from?

Rizwan

[1] http://www.google.com/trends?q=cloud+computing

--
Rizwan Mian
IT Professional/Software Engineer
416-561-2924
viz...@gmail.com
skype (webcam): vizvan
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rizwanmian

[diary_...@hotmail.com]

According to what I learned from the threads in this forum, I would
summarize as follows,

Cloud Computing = Secure Web-based Portal + Traditional Grid
Middleware Solutions (including workload and resource manager) +
Scheduler with geo-politically-aware policy engine + (Optionally)
Support | PayPerUsage Pricing Model.

Like many others pointed out, such form of distributed computing
already existed long before this new term emerged from the IT business
world recently. For example, Tera Grid (http://www.teragrid.org/
about/), an open scientific grid that started the full production mode
in 2004, supports *cloud computing* except that it has no business
model built on it.

Inventor of a term is not necessarily the inventor of the technology.
May be he/she invented a new business case.

Anyways, I see lots of challenging open problems that can be
approached academically. I'm pretty sure relevant academic conference
proceedings and journal articles will be caught under your radar as
you penetrate deeper into technical problems phrased in non-business-
oriented terms ;)

[Stuart Charlton]

On May 29, 2008, at 8:49 PM, Rizwan Mian wrote:

Folks,

After reading wikipedia on cloud computing, Ian foster's post and a post on Grid Gurus; I do not find much differences between cloud computing and computational grid.

'Cloud computing' seems to have gained popularity towards the end of 2007 [1]. I could not find any *academic* literature for 'cloud computing' Google scholar. So, I also wonder where did it originate from?

Rizwan

[1] http://www.google.com/trends?q=cloud+computing

A cynic might say that 'cloud computing' is the term for grid computing that has nothing to do with academia ;-)   I sense a general disdain for the standards work to date on computational grids; people think it's out of touch with mainstream IT and overly complex.  

Having said this, I think the work there is valuable at least in enumerating the problems and exploring potential solutions, even though, in most cases, the solutions developed by the OGF will not achieve broad market penetration. 

Cheers

Stu

[Reuven Cohen]

What's interesting is looking at the trend for grid computing compared
to that of cloud computing
http://www.google.com/trends?q=grid+computing%2C+cloud+computing&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Cloud Computing has recently surpassed grid in terms of both raw
searches and news.

ruv

--

[Marlon Pierce]

Note also "Grid" is really a flexible umbrella term that to many people means "whatever I'm working on." For example, a few years ago Foster et al threw around the term "peer to peer" before adopting the Web service approach in 200x.

Marlon

Stuart Charlton wrote:
>
>
> On May 29, 2008, at 8:49 PM, Rizwan Mian wrote:
>
>> Folks,
>>
>> After reading wikipedia on cloud computing

>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing>, Ian foster's post and

>> a post on Grid Gurus

>> <http://gridgurus.typepad.com/grid_gurus/2008/02/my-head-in-the.html>;

[Sebastian Stadil]

Rizwan,

Sam approached a good definition in his blog post here of the various nuances.

[James Urquhart]

Reuven,

Eric Schmidt is generally credited with being the first to use it publicly (at least in a marketing sense). See my "Ah, Yes, How To Define Cloud Computing" post. (Which, by the way, is a bit outdated in terms of a definition--what I describe there is perhaps more of a "Cloud Oriented Architecture", and I'm staking my claim on that term right now! :-) )

The post: http://blog.jamesurquhart.com/2008/03/ah-yes-how-to-define-cloud-computing.html

James

----- Original Message ----
From: Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>
To: cloud-computing <cloud-c...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 8:46:44 AM
Subject: Who invented the term Cloud Computing?

Recently I have become aware that a long time analogy I've devised for
explaining cloud computing has been claimed by someone else. The basis
of my cloud computing analogy is that computing capacity like the
development of the early electrical grid is becoming the fundamental
basis for our information based society. Therefore we need a universal
system for the interchange of computing capacity like we have for
power.

Well it appears that no matter how much I complain, the only way to
truly create an analogy these days is to write an old fashion book (on
paper no less). In my recent blog post
(http://elasticvapor.com/2008/05/elastic-computing-brief-history.html)
I attempt to stake my claim or at the very least give some context to
how and why we saw the need for what I called "elastic computing" back
in 2003.

Now that cloud computing is starting to become more mainstream, there
suddenly seems to be a variety of people & companies who are claiming
to have invented the concept of cloud computing. These companies
arrange from SaaS providers, Search Engines to patent trolls. My
question is who was the first to use the term "cloud computing" ?

[Greg Pfister]

On May 30, 5:34 pm, James Urquhart <jurquh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Eric Schmidt is generally credited with being the first to use it publicly
> (at least in a marketing sense).

[snip]

For all I know, he may be credited with, as you say in your blog,
'raising the term "cloud" into the mainstream IT lexicon.' I
personally haven't encountered that, but there are lots of things I
haven't encountered.

But I watched the video you referenced and don't see what he said as
defining what we have been talking about as cloud computing. He was
asked about "Web 3.0", meaning whatever is after 2.0, and according to
notes I took watching the video, he talked about the following: New
way to build apps. Use of AJAX. Apps pieced together, relatively
small. Data "in the cloud," so apps can be run anywhere (including
phones), Apps distributed virally, not by purchase. Low barrier to
entry (Google tools). New paradigm for software development.

"The cloud" is in there for data storage to allow universal access,
but I don't think I would restrict cloud computing to AJAX and apps
that nobody pays for. (It sounds to me like he was talking about gmail
& Google docs, actually.)

URL of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0QJmmdw3b0

As for putting the term "cloud" in general into the IT lexicon -- hey,
I think I used it in a book back in the early 90s. I do **NOT** claim
to have invented it; I'm just citing prior art. I used it then because
it was common parlance at the time.

--
Greg Pfister