What is in a Name
The term Cloud Computing (CC) is one of those universal terms that can be described as “meaning all things to all men”, which for end user organisation’s looking to understand how/if CC fits into their strategies and is as much use the proverbial chocolate teapot. I define CC in a number of different classifications, and this approach can be used to sort out the vendors so that an organisation is more targeted in its definition of CC, or more importantly it can deliver what the organisation expects and wants.
I classify CC in four different ways: Firstly the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which refers to the vendors that offer the servers and storage needed to execute an organisation’s IT needs, IBM and Amazon are the big names in this class; Secondly, the Platform as a Service (PaaS) vendors such as Google and Microsoft, where the vendors provide the development environment for organisations to design and build solutions and get them to market quickly; Thirdly, Software as a Service (SaaS), which is probably the best known of the CC offerings where the software is hosted and made available to the customer over the Web, Salesforce.com are the best know vendors; Finally, Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC), which provides the capabilities to do all the above internally based on a vendors underlying technology stack, VMware and Citrix are the biggest players in this market. Another option that is distorting the market even more is the move by vendors such as HP and Dell where they are modifying their tradition hosting services to provide CC.
