Cloud Computing Is Nothing New
Cloud computing has optimized the way people search for, share,
and store information. Recent times have seen the development of
newer and more streamlined applications that optimize cloud
computing. Cloud computing offers many benefits such as
virtualization technology, consultants, and infrastructure
solutions. Virtualizing your company's IT is not so hard anymore,
with services like Dell
Server virtualization available.
History of Cloud Computing
The concept of cloud computing dates all the way
back to the 1960s. With the birth of modern computers and simple
networking it became obvious that, one day, computers would be
used as a public utility. It was around this time that mainframe
computers as we know them today began being used for things like
data entry and processing financial transactions. As computers
grew in popularity and more and more businesses began to utilize
them, cloud computing really began to get attention from both
business owners and information technology specialists in the late
1990s. Highly customizable interfaces for sales and the
organization of information came to the forefront. Amazon was the
first developer of subscription-based cloud computing services in
2006, and shortly thereafter major companies such as Google and
IBM began researching the benefits and infrastructure of cloud
computing. In early 2008, an open-source company called Eucalyptus
began offering private clouds to consumers and business owners,
setting into motion cloud computing as we know it today.
Cloud Computing and Webmail
Millions of people in the United States use
web-based e-mail clients such as Windows Live, Google's G-mail,
and Yahoo. However, E-mail messages are not stored on the end
user's computer for retrieval at any time. They are stored in a
remote location on a group of computers called a server. This is cloud
computing in its simplest form. For decades now, remote
servers in several locations around the country have stored e-mail
messages in their databases. End users simply enter their e-mail
addresses and passwords into the provided interface, a website, in
order to retrieve their messages. As simple as this may sound,
years of research have optimized the way webmail clients work, and
now there are literally thousands of highly customizable options
for webmail interfaces available from hundreds of different
companies.
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