Who is the father of cloud computing?

Cloud computing refers to the delivery of various services over the internet such as data storage, processing and applications. Cloud computing has quickly become one of the driving forces in IT since its advent; providing faster innovation, greater scalability and lower costs for businesses as well as individuals alike. But who created it all in the first place? Who invented it all?
In this article, we’ll trace the evolution of cloud computing from its start in the 1960s through today and its potential trends and challenges. From there we will also investigate why this form of technology should become part of everyday life and discuss its importance and future trends and obstacles.

Table of Contents

What Is Cloud Computing (CC)?

Cloud computing refers to an approach of providing IT resources as services over the internet rather than owning and maintaining them on-premises, with users having instantaneous access without worry for maintenance of any underlying infrastructure or maintenance costs. Cloud services may include any number of benefits such as:

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): IaaS refers to cloud providers’ provision of basic computing resources like servers, storage space, networks and operating systems rented out on rental agreements from users for use running applications and systems from within their own environment.

Platform as a service (PaaS): PaaS refers to cloud providers who offer development and deployment environments for building cloud applications, giving users access to tools, frameworks, libraries and databases as a resource to use in creating their own applications and managing them successfully.

Software as a Service (SaaS): SaaS refers to cloud-based applications or software which users can access from any device using web browsing or app access – these might include email, social media sites like Facebook and gaming apps or productivity tools for instance.

Why is cloud computing important?

Cloud computing holds significant potential.
Cloud computing offers many benefits for both businesses and individuals, such as:

Cost Savings: Cloud computing offers significant cost-cutting advantages over its on-premise equivalent, such as purchasing, installing and managing expensive software and hardware solutions. Users only pay for what they use while having the flexibility of scaling resources up or down according to their individual requirements.

Flexibility: Cloud computing allows users to access IT resources anytime and from any place with internet connectivity; users also have their pick of multiple providers and services that meet their preferences and needs.

Performance: Cloud computing allows users to utilize the power and capacity of large-scale data centers continuously updated and optimized by cloud providers, while taking advantage of features like load balancing, caching and redundancy that enhance application reliability and availability.

Innovation: Cloud computing allows users to explore innovative ideas and technologies without investing in infrastructure or software, taking advantage of cutting edge offerings such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics and Internet of things from cloud providers.

The origin of cloud computing

The vision of J.C.R. Licklider

J.C.R Licklider (Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider), is often considered the founder of cloud computing. An American psychologist and computer scientist, Licklider pioneered artificial intelligence, interactive computing and online communication during his lifetime – becoming director of Information Processing Techniques Office of ARPA which funded projects pertaining to science and technology research projects between 1962-67.
Licklider had a vision to create an intergalactic computer network which would enable people to access data and programs from any location – something he referred to as his “Galactic Network”. Licklider believed this idea could enable new forms of collaboration, communication, education, entertainment, social interactions as well as remote users accessing software or services over local machines.
Licklider’s vision was far ahead of its time; neither the technology nor infrastructure required for realizing his dream were readily available at that point. Yet his influence laid a solid foundation for cloud computing by inspiring and funding numerous researchers and projects aimed at furthering computer networking and distributed computing technologies.

Development of ARPANET

Licklider initiated and supported an array of significant projects during his life; one being ARPANET (analogous to today’s internet). ARPANET consisted of an interconnection network between research institutes and universities throughout the US designed to promote information sharing among scientists working on ARPA-funded projects as well as facilitate information collaboration among them.
ARPANET was introduced into service in 1969 by four nodes located at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara and University of Utah. To enhance efficiency and reliability in data transmission over long distances, packet switching – breaking data up into small units called packets before sending them along various paths until reaching its final destination – was employed. This technique increased data efficiency as it reduced delays due to different routes taken.
ARPANET was also the first network to employ TCP/IP protocol suite – a set of rules and standards governing how data is formatted, addressed, transmitted, routed and received over networks – in terms of managing formatted addresses to route traffic accordingly. TCP/IP allowed different networks from various kinds to connect together creating what would eventually become known as internetwork – something we now call internet.
ARPANET was not only an important milestone in computer networking history but also cloud computing’s timeline. It demonstrated both its feasibility and benefits of connecting remote computers over networks to share resources; furthermore it led to technologies and applications which later would form part of cloud computing such as email, file transfer protocol (FTP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and the world wide web –

The emergence of time-sharing and virtualization

An important development that led to cloud computing’s genesis was time-sharing. Time-sharing allows multiple users to share simultaneous access to a computer or server at any one time by allocating each of them a certain period or slice of time to use its resources such as CPU, memory, disk space and peripherals – with rapid switching between users giving each the impression they have exclusive use of its resources.
Time-sharing was first developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s as an efficient solution to underutilization of expensive mainframe computers. Mainframe computers are large machines designed for complex calculations that process large volumes of data quickly; however, their purchase and upkeep was often prohibitively expensive, leading many users or programs unused at times; time sharing offered a way for multiple people to share this burden more equitably and economically.
Time-sharing enabled users to remotely access computing resources by connecting terminals or devices directly to mainframe computers via telephone lines or networks, using either commands or GUIs for interaction, running applications stored on mainframe computers without installing them on personal devices, and running programs stored therein without installing anything locally – an early form of cloud computing as users could use software and services provided from remote servers instead of local machines.
One technology that made time-sharing possible was virtualization. Virtualization refers to any technique which creates a virtual version of physical resources such as servers, operating systems, networks or storage devices and allows multiple virtual resources to run on one physical resource at the same time (or vice versa), improving efficiency by sharing physical resources among multiple users or applications.
Virtualization was initially introduced by IBM during the 1960s as a way to facilitate time sharing on mainframe computers. IBM created software known as CP-40 (later CP-67) which allowed multiple operating systems to coexist on one mainframe computer simultaneously and run in separate virtual machines (VMs), each which emulated both physical and software aspects of an actual machine; users could access various VMs through terminals connected to mainframe computers.
Virtualization was key in creating cloud computing; it allowed cloud providers to easily set up and manage multiple VMs on their servers and offer them as services over the internet for users’ rental – so they could run applications or systems without purchasing and maintaining physical servers themselves. Through virtualization’s evolution came cloud computing – giving way to applications like Airbnb that provided users with virtual hosting solutions in lieu of having physical servers themselves. It fueled its rise over time.

The evolution of cloud computing

The rise of the internet and web services

Cloud computing emerged during the late 90s and early 2000s due to rapid internet growth and web services’ widespread acceptance, providing a global platform that allowed computers from various regions and locations to connect globally through different protocols; web services provided standardized ways of exchanging data among applications over this global infrastructure.
Internet and web services enabled new forms of cloud computing, including:

Application Service Providers (ASPs): These were companies which offered software applications or SaaS online and allow their users access without installation or updates from any device – for instance Salesforce provides this feature and Hotmail was one of the original webmail providers.

Utility Computing: Utility computing was a model for providing computing resources such as CPUs, storage drives, bandwidth bandwidths and software as metered services over the internet to users on demand – such as CPU usage or software license renewal costs – at metered rates via metered services like Sun Microsystem’s Sun Grid for on-demand computing power or Akamai for content delivery network (CDN) services. Users would pay per use as their computing needs changed over time. Examples include Sun’s Sun Grid offering computing power as on demand computing power-on demand computing as metered services while scaling resources according to individual need was flexible enough that people paid only what was consumed from these metered services provided over time by Sun Microsystems’ Sun Grid which provided computing power on demand services while Akamai offered content delivery network CDN services through content delivery network services provided content delivery network CDN services such as CDN services from Sun. * Akamai provided content delivery network CDN services that delivered content delivery network CDN services offered content delivery network CDN content delivery networks via CDN service provided content delivery network services through Akamai services on demand from Sun Microsystems’ Sun Grid which offered computing power on demand or scaling them up or down according to needs from Sun Microsystems/Akamai services offered content delivery network CDN content delivery networks like Sun CDN service Akamai. * Utility computing was one model employed via content delivery network Akamai as its content delivery network CDN providers Akamai. * Utility computing included Sun Microsystem’s Akamai CDN. * Akamai used content delivery network services via CDN delivery network services similar CDN. * Akamai offered Content delivery Network as CDN provided content delivered network. * Akamai provided CDN content delivered content delivery network Akamai; both offered CDN.

Grid Computing: Grid computing was a method for using distributed computers to perform large-scale, complex tasks that required high performance parallel processing. Users could access and utilize all the resources of multiple computers over the internet without being responsible for owning and managing them; examples included SETI@home, which used volunteer computers to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and Folding@home, which used volunteer computers to simulate protein folding simulation.

These early forms of cloud computing were founded upon using the internet as a platform to deliver and consume IT resources as services; however, these early implementations of cloud computing did not fully develop or standardize and faced various hurdles such as security concerns, reliability concerns, interoperability considerations and scaling requirements.

The launch of Amazon Web Services and Elastic Compute Cloud

At Amazon Web Services and Elastic Compute Cloud, the cloud computing revolution truly began in 2006. Amazon.com, one of the world’s premier online retailers, introduced Amazon Web Services (AWS), an IaaS/PaaS suite aimed at users over the internet that leveraged Amazon’s extensive experience managing large-scale datacenters for its own e-commerce business. AWS offered infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as well as platform as a service (PaaS).
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), one of AWS’ key offerings, allowed users to rent virtual machines (VMs) from Amazon’s servers and use them for running applications or systems of their own. Users could select different sizes and types of VMs on demand while only paying per hour used; additionally they could scale them up or down according to needs and access them remotely either via web interfaces or APIs.
EC2 was among the earliest services that provided cloud computing in its modern sense, as it enabled users to gain access and utilize computing resources on demand without purchasing or managing physical servers. Furthermore, using virtualization technology allowed multiple virtual machines (VMs) on one server for better utilization of server resources and efficiency.
After the success of Amazon EC2, other services providing different forms of cloud resources emerged; including Simple Storage Service (S3) for data storage; Simple Queue Service (SQS), for message queuing; SimpleDB database service and Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), load balancing. In addition, AWS provided tools and frameworks for developing and deploying applications using cloud resources like Elastic Beanstalk Lambda CloudFormation among others.
Amazon Web Services was an early leader in cloud computing, offering an innovative yet comprehensive and secure platform to deliver and consume IT resources over the internet. AWS gained widespread adoption due to its cost savings, flexibility, performance improvements and innovations it delivered – drawing many customers and developers as customers wanted to take advantage of cloud’s potential benefits: such as savings of cost compared with on-premise solutions as well as performance gains over traditional solutions and innovation potential.

The entry of Google, Microsoft, and other cloud providers
Launch of Google, Microsoft and Other Cloud Providers

Amazon Web Services’ success inspired other tech titans to enter the cloud computing market; companies such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Alibaba as well as Alibaba launched competing cloud platforms and services offering unique value propositions for customers and developers.
Google announced its Cloud Platform (GCP) in 2008, providing various cloud services utilizing their own experience building and managing large-scale datacenters and web services for its search engine, Gmail, YouTube, Maps products. GCP provided services like Compute Engine (CE), which offered virtual machines (VMs); App Engine (AE), which offered PaaS; Cloud Storage (CS), which offered data storage; BigQuery (BQ), which offered analytics; Cloud Functions (CF), which offered serverless computing; Cloud Functions Orchestration Engine Kubernetes Engine KE).
Microsoft introduced Windows Azure (later rebranded Microsoft Azure) in 2010, providing various cloud services utilizing their experience in building software systems for its own Windows, Office, Xbox and other products. Azure included Virtual Machines (VMs); Cloud Services (CS), which provided PaaS; Storage (ST), which offered data storage; SQL Database (SQL DB), providing database services; Functions (FN), providing serverless computing; and Service Fabric (SF), providing microservices.
IBM launched IBM Cloud (formerly Bluemix) in 2011 as an array of cloud services utilizing their experience and knowledge in building hardware and software products such as its mainframe, Watson AI system, Cloud Foundry PaaS (CF), SoftLayer IaaS (SL), Watson (WT) artificial intelligence platform; Cloudant CT database service offering serverless computing; OpenWhisk service offering container orchestration (OW); Kubernetes Service KS offering container orchestration as among many.
Oracle Cloud was first unveiled by Oracle in 2012, providing various cloud services utilizing its expertise in creating and overseeing software systems and databases for databases, middleware, and enterprise apps. Oracle offered services including Compute (CP), which provided virtual machines (VM), Database (DB), Application Development (AD), PaaS as a Service; Integration (IN), which offered data integration; Analytics (AN), which offered data analytics; as well as Autonomous Database (ADB), which offered self-managing database options.
Salesforce unveiled Salesforce Platform in 2012 as an umbrella cloud services offering, drawing upon their extensive expertise in developing software systems for CRM products like Salesforce CRM. Their services included Force.com (FC), Heroku (HR), Lightning Platform (LP), Einstein Platform Services (EPS), artificial intelligence capabilities as well as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (MAP).
Alibaba Cloud was introduced by Alibaba in 2009 to capitalize on their extensive experience developing software systems for their e-commerce, payment, logistics, and other products. Services available under Alibaba Cloud included Elastic Compute Service (ECS), offering virtual machines; Object Storage Service (OSS), offering data storage space; Relational Database Service (RDS), which provided database access; Function Compute (FC), providing serverless computing; Machine Learning Platform for AI (MLPAI), providing artificial intelligence; Container Service for Kubernetes (CSK), offering container orchestration capabilities; Container Service for Kubernetes (CSK).
These cloud providers were quick to follow the lead set forth by AWS by providing various types of resources and services online, competing against it by differentiating themselves through offering niche resources or services, niche market specialization, as well as working collaboratively or competitively alongside one another to form standards, alliances or ecosystems that shaped cloud computing’s future. They ultimately concluded by outdoing AWS by offering different kinds of cloud resources for users over the internet and differentiating themselves further by offering strengths-focused products or niche services which were unique from each other in offering resources and services provided over internet by each provider offering different resources and services offered over internet to users worldwide users via internet connections; further differentiated themselves through specialization while focusing on strength/niche/market strategies as they collaborated against AWS with respect to developing standards/alliance/ecosystems/ecosystems/ecosystems which will shape cloud computing’s future evolution.

Conclusion

Summary of Key Points

In this article, we have traced the development of cloud computing from its birth in the 1960s until today’s 21st Century, discussing its benefits as well as future trends and challenges associated with cloud technology.

Cloud computing was pioneered by J.C.R Licklider who dreamed of creating an internet of interconnected computers that allowed anyone access to data and programs anywhere at anytime.

Cloud computing emerged due to two key developments – ARPANET’s advent as an early precursor of the internet and time sharing and virtualization which allowed multiple users accessing one computer or server at the same time.

Cloud computing’s rise was spurred on by internet technologies and web services, opening up opportunities to develop various forms of cloud computing such as application service provider models (ASP), utility computing platforms (UCP), and grid computing grid infrastructures.

Cloud computing experienced its breakthrough moment in 2006 when Amazon unveiled AWS: an infrastructure as a service and platform as a service platform that offered users IaaS and PaaS services through the internet.

Amazon Web Services’ success inspired and challenged other tech titans, including Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com and Alibaba to enter the cloud computing market.

Future Trends and Challenges of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is not a static or completed concept; rather it continues to adapt and develop to meet user and developer demands and needs. Some future trends and challenges associated with it include:

Hybrid Cloud: Hybrid clouds combine public, private, and on-premise resources into one flexible IT environment that meets users’ performance, availability and compliance needs. Users of hybrid clouds can take advantage of both public and private clouds’ benefits of scaleability and cost effectiveness while private ones’ offer security and control – creating the ultimate flexibility when moving data across platforms or providers depending on performance, availability or compliance issues.

Multi-cloud: Multi-cloud refers to using multiple cloud platforms and providers to deliver and consume IT resources as services, helping avoid vendor lock-in, reduce costs, enhance reliability and enhance innovation. Multi-cloud also gives users flexibility in choosing which cloud service best meets each task or function and seamlessly integrating it via APIs or middleware integration solutions.
Edge computing refers to the practice of processing data and applications at the edge of the network, closer to their source or target rather than on central cloud servers. Edge computing helps users reduce latency, bandwidth costs, performance concerns and privacy concerns while improving overall security, privacy and performance compared with using traditional cloud-based servers centralized storage solutions such as with IoT sensors, cameras and smart appliances alone.
*Serverless computing:This term refers to the removal of servers and infrastructure from application development and deployment within cloud environments, freeing developers to focus on business logic rather than managing servers and resources themselves – such as provisioning, scaling or managing resources such as servers that remain idle due to serverless computing. With serverless computing in effect, only resources consumed by an application need be paid for rather than paying for idle or unused server capacity.

Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence refers to using machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision and speech recognition techniques with cloud applications and services to accomplish tasks which normally require human intelligence. Using these advanced methods enables users to enhance the capabilities and value of cloud applications and services through features like personalization, recommendation prediction automation analytics. As well as this advantage it also leverages massive amounts of data available within cloud systems allowing accessing massive computing power available online.
Cloud computing represents more than just technology; it represents a paradigm shift in how IT resources are utilized and delivered as services, altering how we work, learn, play, communicate and socialize as individuals and societies collaborate together on solutions to new opportunities that come from leveraging IT in different ways.

These trends and challenges demonstrate why so many individuals, businesses and societies alike see cloud computing as not only being an innovative technology solution but a fundamental shift for society overall.

Who is the father of cloud computing?

What Is Cloud Computing (CC)?

Why is cloud computing important?