Cloud Computing
How Beowulf begat the Cloud
Cloud computing is the latest name for a revolution in computing which was dubbed "Beowulf" by Donald Becker and Thomas Sterling at NASA in 1994. The concept is simple - scale computing by dividing work across a large number of inexpensive, non-proprietary machines. Before this, computing was scaled by putting more CPU's at higher speeds in one large monolithic machine, which had limited scalability and very high cost.
Like most visionaries, Don and Tom were criticized for trying to make supercomputers with lowly commodity machines - the first Beowulf machines were conceived using 486 processors and the supercomputers of the time had fancy custom CPU's made from exotic (and dangerous) materials like Gallium Arsenide! look at the latest linux clusters being made today at the national labs though and you'll see this new approach now defines high performance computing, and the "common" x86-class CPU's are quite capable indeed when thousands of them are deployed to task.
the machine on the left cost a heck of a lot more than the one in the middle!
And then there was "Grid"
After the Beowulf project had pretty much proved its point marketing folks at the big computer firms decided to make a new twist on the concept by renaming it "Grid Computing". Grid was a similar concept to Beowulf except it was expanded to include machines that might not be tightly coupled. Computation resources might be harnessed which would exist across campus, or even on another continent.
OK so what is Cloud computing?
Our take on this is "Cloud Computing" refers to the abstract notion of getting a large number of machines which may be somewhere off in cyberspace (ideally somewhere cold with cheap power that you don't ever have to visit) to do your work for you, as simply as possible. An expert provider of Cloud Computing solutions should be able to deploy best-in-class capabilities from a broad range of potential technology components to tackle your biggest computing challenges and give you the opportunity to scale up your capabilities quickly as your requirements dictate.
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