The origins of Cloud Computing

This expression comes from the early days of the Internet, when it was customary to draw the network as a cloud.

"We didn't care where the messages went... the cloud hid it from us" Kevin Marks, Google.

"We didn't care where the messages came from...the cloud hid their origin".

The first cloud was built around the network (TCP/IP abstraction). The second cloud was the document cloud (World Wide Web abstraction).

Today's cloud, Cloud Computing, is an abstraction of IT infrastructure that masks the complexity of heterogeneous servers, applications, data and platforms.

Translating the term Cloud Computing into French isn't easy. Informatique en nuage or infonuagique, as our Canadian friends call it, don't seem to have much of a career ahead of them. In this issue, we'll...