The Cloud: a leap created from combining existing technologies

The Cloud: a leap created from combining existing technologies
By Alan Ganek, chief technology officer for IBM Software

Published: April 30 2009 15:21 | Last updated: April 30 2009 15:21

Today’s increasingly interconnected environment requires an IT infrastructure capable of handling the massive quantities of digital information being exchanged. The new IT architecture built to handle this highly interactive world is cloud computing.

At its most basic, cloud computing is an approach to a shared IT infrastructure in which large pools of computer systems are linked together to provide IT services. It offers a simplified, centralised platform that can be used as needed, thereby lowering costs and energy use.

Sometimes technology leaps ahead as the result of a specific advancement, such as the transistor. More often major leaps occur when multiple technologies are combined to create something entirely new.

Cloud computing is created by the fusion of a number of existing technologies, including virtualisation, networking, service-oriented architecture and an internet-based delivery model, known as software-as-a-service that charges customers only for actual usage.

As a result, it is creating a flexible, robust infrastructure to serve the needs of today’s economy where knowledge flows to countries and regions where IT infrastructures are reliable and responsive.

Since it accesses “virtual” resources, cloud computing is not limited by the power and capabilities of local or remote computers. Unlike grid computing, which distributes IT for a specific task, cloud computing can be applied across an entire range of activities, and used with a wide variety of devices, including laptops, smart phones and hand-held devices.

Cloud computing uses IT resources more efficiently, requiring less energy and reducing carbon emissions. According to Info-Tech Research Group, most computer servers run full time, but are used at between 10 and 20 percent of capacity. By pooling resources, cloud-computing platforms can scale up or down, saving energy and operating costs.

Some observers say that cloud computing could mean the decline of in-house data centres, but that is not the case. Rather, it allows the data centre to evolve into a more dynamic, interactive function. Cloud computing provides data centres with extreme scale, and most important, fast access to information in the data centre regardless of the type of device a person uses. This is becoming crucial as many new types of mobile devices come on to the market.

Today, the cloud computing platforms getting most media attention are externally hosted services; however, private cloud computing platforms are also developing especially within companies operating globally. Private cloud platforms are able to establish security protocols, which carefully monitor the levels of access to the information that is made available for exchange.

Cloud computing will continue to evolve as it responds to business and market trends as well as new technological advances. Its advantages, however, are already clear.

Cloud computing offers the ability to integrate widely diverse kinds of information, a simpler infrastructure to manage the complexity of intelligent technologies and more efficient computing power to handle massive amounts of data as it keeps costs and energy use down.

It is an IT approach that will serve the needs of our interconnected, interactive world now and in the decades to come.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009