The fastest supercomputer does about 480 tn computations per second. But there are huge costs and high performance computing technologies involved. Now replace the supercomputer with desktop PCs and servers spread across the world. Throw some softwareactually significant amountson this distributed computing environment, and what have you got? The same or better processing power, at less cost. Welcome to the cloud!

Cloud computing supports the idea of computing power offered as a service. It lets users distribute over a network of thousands of PCs and servers, using their combined computing power. The PCs used are often commodity PCs and servers. Put together, the system is capable of processing enormous data sets in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. This enables administrators to achieve supercomputing power and make it available to other users, letting them pay only for their use of the software. Cloud computing makes IT management far simpler and ensures a high degree of optimization of IT resources.

In October last year, Google and IBM teamed up to popularize cloud computing in educational institutions. With the huge amount of data that is an inevitable result of modern business and science, Googles cloud has emerged as its biggest form of capital. Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Microsoft also offer Internet consumer services like search, social networking, email and online commerce that harness the power of cloud computing. Amazons Web Services program, which has been around for a while, allows users to access and use its cloud computing infrastructure over the Web. IBM and others have built Internet services to predict market trends, tailor pricing and optimize procurement and manufacturing. Other companies, which work on the SaaS model, have been using this successfully.

What is good about the cloud? It works as one supercomputer but is not a single unit. So if individual pieces fall into disrepair, they can simply be replaced with better pieces. So the supercomputer keeps getting more powerful. You need people to only service the machine, not to operate them.

Shyam Malhotra

Cloud computing, if offered as a service, would not require organizations to get their hands dirty in routine tasks. There are no maintenance issues, and there is no storage crunchas the cloud is expandable. Corporate users no longer need to worry about compatibility issues and have no need to upgrade. As the software is on the Web, it can be continuously improved, forgoing the need for a build-and-release cycle.

The biggest factor in favor of the cloud is scale. Instead of having to invest in setting up and maintaining your own infrastructure, the user can have reduced capital costs, and usage-based payment schemes.

Whats the catch? The cloud needs the Internet. There is no way to guarantee 100% uptime. The recent undersea cable failures are evidence of this. Would the user ever want to place his entire business online? The other gamble is surrendering huge amounts of data to third partiesdata which could be sensitive and used toward malicious ends if it falls into the wrong hands.

Similar concepts have been around grid computing, utility computing and SaaS.

But if the cloud becomes a way of life, there is a lot of evolution ahead. One, the jobs of inhouse IT managers will not look like what they are today; secondly, traditional hardware and software manufacturers will need major realignment to the cloud concept. For the present, both desktop-based and cloud-based technologies will coexist.

But there can be clouds ahead.

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