Although I wanted to post more I didn’t have the time to blog on some hot topics in the last two weeks.Cloud Computing is one of the new terms flying around the Net.I came across a post from Joseph Kent Langley explaining pretty good what being in the clouds is all about:

Cloud Computing (Figure 1.0) is a commercial extension of computing resources like computation cycles and storage offered as a metered service similar to a physical public utility like electricity, water, natural gas, or telephone network. It enables a computing system to acquire or release computing resources on demand in a manner such that the loss of any one component of the system will not cause total system failure. Cloud computing also allows the deployment of software applications into an environment running the necessary technology stack for the purposes of development, staging, or production of a software application. It does all this in a way that minimizes the necessary interaction with the underlying layers of the technology stack.

More compactly stated, cloud computing is a commercial extension of utility computing that enables scalable, elastic, highly available deployment of software applications while minimizing the level of detailed interaction with the underlying technology stack itself.

Other nice posts on Cloud Computing can be found on the High Scalability website.I hope to get deeper look on the topic in near future and post more info here.

Update: More info on the topic in the Defining Cloud Computing post in InfoQ. List with 9 features that make up Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud computing:

1. Virtualization Layer Network Stability
2. API for Creation, Deletion, Cloning of Instances
3. Application Layer Interoperability
4. State Layer Interoperability
5. Application Services
6. Automatic Scale
7. Hardware Load Balancing
8. Storage as a Service
9. Root access, If Required