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Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread use of autonomic, utility computing, service-oriented architecture, and virtualisation. The point behind cloud hosting is that details are taken from end-users who no longer require control over the technology infrastructure in the Internet that supports them. The term “cloud” is basically a metaphor for the Internet. How did a cloud become associated with the Internet I hear you ask? Well basically, in the past, a cloud drawing was employed to represent the telephone network and so naturally when the Internet came about, the cloud was employed to represent the Internet in computer network diagrams.

One can trace the underlying concept of cloud hosting to John McCarthy who asserted as early as the 1960s that “computation may someday be organised as a public utility”. The modern day aspects of cloud computing, such as its illusion of infinite supply, its elastic provision…etc, were all present in Douglas Parkill’s seminal book, ‘The Challenge of the Computer Utility’ which he published in 1966. The exact origins of cloud computing have been disputed by scholars, some arguing that its roots can be traced in the work of the scientist Herb Grosch in the 1950s. Grosch speculated that the whole world would function on dumb terminals that were powered by approximately fifteen large data centres.