History and Features of Cloud Computing

Cloud because of its wide range of applications it allows users to store data their data remotely in the cloud and enjoy the on-demand high quality cloud applications and reveal burden from the local storage, cost and maintenance. In this according to the user’s perspective, including both individuals (private) and enterprises like companies appealing the cloud benefits by storing data remotely into the cloud in a flexible on-demand manner and relief of the burden of storage management along with this he/she can also enjoy the universal data access which dependent geographical locations and avoidance of the capital expenditure, software, hardware and personnel management and maintenances and so on.

Cloud computing can be understood as a multifaceted infrastructure of hardware, software, storage and processing available to be used as a service. With the use of cloud computing, without even knowing how it works, one can access a large number of the most sophisticated supercomputers of the world and their respective processing powers without being overwhelmed with space or information. Cloud computing allows access to computer networks located at various places in the world and thus offers the speed of

Cloud computing can be viewed as one of the most rapidly growing and evolving paradigm.Webmail,online storage and online documents are most famous examples in which customers can access their data via web browsers on the internet. The original idea of the cloud computing was delivered by J.C.R Licklider in sixties (Mohamed 2009). Cloud computing has developed since then and started to server the publics after internet offered a significant bandwidth in the nineties (Mohamed 2009). Cloud computing has been through many different phases and is still rapidly evolving.

Through the use of the Internet and remotely located servers, cloud computing’s technology allows companies to save money, by eliminating the need to maintain servers and other hardware locally. Having a central location for files, applications, and servers; companies benefit by saving money they would have otherwise invested in equipment maintenance, bandwidth, storage (hard drives), and memory use.

The idea of cloud computing was first initially introduced by J.C.R Licklider in 1969 who introduced the idea as “Intergalactic Computer Network” [1]. He envisioned a future where everyone on the planet was connected/interconnected together accessing information, data, programs and so on from anywhere in the world. A comments was made by Margaret Lewis who is the product marketing director at AMD who said in 2010 that J.C.R Licklider idea in 1969 “the idea sounds a lot like what we are calling cloud computing” [1, 2]. Some believe the idea was first discussed by John McCarthy who discussed it in a public venue at a speech that was celebrating MIT centennial who said “that computer time-sharing technology might result in a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the utility business model (like water or electricity)”[3].

The word "cloud" is used to represent the internet and other communications systems. Cloud computing is the result of an evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing in the past, telecommunications companies mainly gave simply dedicated, point-to-point data circuits to their users. Starting from the 1990's, virtual private network services was included in their contributions. It made the telecommunication companies offer equally improved services whereby cutting down on cost as well as using resources effectively.

Recently, Cloud technology has turn out to be a huge buzzword, and with good reason. The cloud already creates remarkable value for clients and businesses by making the digital world simpler, faster, more powerful, and more efficient. In addition to bringing valued Internet-based services and applications, the cloud can provide a more

Cloud computing belongs to a group called SaaS (Software as a Service) computing. SaaS deliver one application within cloud computing to thousands of customers across the world. Cloud computing is also a utility computing IT resource that allows user to access the cloud on demand. Cloud computing also delivers cloud web services. Who invented Cloud computing? John McCarthy in the 1960s stated that “computation may someday be organized as a public utility” (Anon., 2010). This was the era when the idea of cloud computing came about. In 1966 Douglass Parkhill looked into all modern day characteristics of cloud computing within his book ‘The Challenge of computer utility’ (Parkhill, 1966). Around as early as the 1950s “an early implementation of cloud computing was patented and put to use (in England and Germany) by Hardy Schloer. He termed the system a ‘one page web’” (Anon., 2010). Since then Cloud computing has grown on a fast scale. Cloud computing is now used by millions of people across the world.

With the ability to be more flexible, require less overhead, and access the data anywhere in the world (usually), cloud computing is becoming an increasingly popular option, offering a wide array of services and solutions. These services and solutions, although unique, generally have the same essential characteristics. The five essential characteristics, as defined by NIST, are:

After couple years cloud computing became extremely powerful, since in 1990’s Internet started to offer significant bandwidth, which made it possible to maintain huge amount to storage outside of personal hard drive.

The world has recently adopted a new approach to computing – cloud computing. It is a particularly new model of computing, where databases are stored and operated somewhere in a cloud. Mell and Grance (2011) define cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (p. 2). In other words, the cloud is considered a remote computing data center that one can access either on the subscription or “pay-as-you-go” basis. Thus, cloud computing relates to the hardware, applications, and system software that provide

The cloud computing, in comparison with personal computing, offers an extensive range of competencies. Cloud computing is defined in broader terms as “A large-scale distributed computing paradigm that is driven by economies of scale, in which a pool of abstracted, virtualized, dynamically-scalable, managed computing power, storage, platforms, and services are delivered on demand to external customers over the Internet.”12

Cloud computing is the new buzz in the recent days and cloud computing allows users to share files and applications over the internet. In the following pages we will discuss about the cloud computing its pros and cons, the security risk and how to overcome and use its resources for the best advantage of organizations. It is attracting much of the attention now-a-days which can be seen by observing the big names of the IT industry like IBM, Microsoft and Google investing millions of dollars into research on cloud computing.

server, load software on it, turn it on and off or clone it to meet a sudden workload demand. It

Cloud computing is more advantageous to this sector. It’s one of the easiest and fastest service in order to advertise and spread fame. It helps in spreading the name of services and get fame in the market with in a very short period. The software as well as hardware related issues occurred in this field are solved to a great extent by the cloud computing. It improves the platform and provides the security to the data stored in the cloud.