As part of my first article for this platform, I am going to write about the history of cloud computing. This will be a useful article since many people know that cloud computing is an important new technological development, but very few could probably tell you exactly what cloud computing is or how it works. Looking at the history of how cloud computing got to the position it has now will hopefully shed some light on the importance of cloud computing. Now, what is cloud computing? According to Oxford, the definition of cloud computing is “the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer”.
Usually, cloud computing services allow a company to avoid or minimize up-front IT infrastructure costs that come with using traditional servers. Cloud computing allows different companies to manage their systems easier with less maintenance while allowing older PCs (or even phones) to remotely connect to quality servers for business purposes. The term “cloud computing” appeared in 19 with a Compaq internal document. However, the term ‘cloud’ was used to refer to platforms for distributed computing as early as 1993. A concept similar to the cloud was described by American inventor Andy Hertzfeld in a _Wired _April 1994 feature article:
“The beauty of Telescript … is that now, instead of just having a device to program, we now have the entire Cloud out there, where a single program can go and travel to many different sources of information and create a sort of a virtual service. No one had conceived that before. The example Jim White [the designer of Telescript, X.400_ and_ ASN.1] uses now is a date-arranging service where a software agent goes to the flower store and orders flowers and then goes to the ticket shop and gets the tickets for the show, and everything is communicated to both parties.”
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