O'Reilly, Microsoft, and others about cloud computing

It seems that, indeed, cloud computing is destined to electrify the 21st century . Gartner researchers have named this area the second on the list of those that will most rapidly develop next year. And if we consider that computing in the clouds is, in fact, an integral part of a more general concept of virtualization, which took first place in this list, then the “Clouds” can be considered as the first promising direction.

Interest in computing in the clouds as a resource-saving technology has intensified sharply against the backdrop of the global economic crisis and is further fueled by the “green” nature of these clouds.

Following Amazon, SalesForce (with its force.com), Google (with its AppEngine), the old-timers of the information technology industry finally declared their rights in this market: IBM (for more details in my note “... Marriage in the clouds ”) and at the end last month Microsoft. The latter presented the draft of his “cloud” Azure operating system along with the centers of provider services in the clouds.

Finally, O'Reilly - the apostle of the Web 2.0 movement, who spoke with the article “ Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing ”, could not stand it either. The article was prepared before the presentation of Azure and, it seems to me, even before the mentioned presentations of IBM. However, I recommend everyone who is interested in this problem to read it. The article is deep, provided with useful links, although a little philosophical, and it is somewhat difficult to read. No less interesting comments are coming to her, however, somewhat servile (the maestro after all :)). Therefore, it is with this article that I decided to start my new series of translations, abstracts and reviews in the field of cloud computing, the main excerpts of which I will try to publish on Habré.
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Since the terminology and the model of computing in the clouds are still not very settled, especially in their Russian-language refraction, I will be grateful to everyone who knows English for any comments on the translation of the article.

I also want to warn in advance that I share not everything expressed by the maestro, but decided not to intervene yet, leaving it to a special overview note in which I want to critically summarize a number of recent publications on this topic. Among them, two are related to Microsoft in the clouds: " Microsoft " means , " Ray Ozzie explains the cloud computing for the enterprise ." I recommend to everyone who can do it, and Microsoft’s “friends” and “enemies”, without waiting for me, be sure to at least run over these articles. I also intend to analyze the materials of the just-concluded Web 2.0 Summit conference, at which they talked a lot about cloud models (O'Reilly referred to this event as coming in the second part of the translated article).

Well, for now you can start reading the translation of the first part of the article by O'Reilly (about the types of clouds and their “hidden” secrets).