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TopThe Concept Of Cloud Computing
Although there is no universally agreed definition of cloud computing the term refers to a computing service provided via internet connections, a service that can be scaled up and down. It can mean a storage service; or it can be seen as a platform or as a software service. According to a group of researchers at Gartner cloud computing has five key attributes: service-based, scalable and elastic, shared, metered by use and using Internet Technology (Plummer et al., 2009). Customers and providers of cloud services will consider any of above attributes or a combination of attributes to determine the expected services. Essentially it is a style of computing where IT capabilities are provided as a service delivered over the Internet to a customer’s workplace, similar to utilities like water and electricity which are ‘piped’ to the customer’s premises.
It can be argued that cloud computing evolves from and integrates a number of IT practices both private and public organisations have experienced over past years: outsourcing, software as service (SaaS), web-based storage etc. The development of cloud-based services has accelerated its pace in the last few years due to improved technologies and faster internet speed.
For service users cloud computing is an attractive alternative to building their own computing infrastructure, which can be cost efficient (Korri, 2009). The key advantages of cloud computing are held to be greatly reduced costs, increased efficiency and a significant reduction in energy consumption leading to cost savings and greener IT (Foster et al., 2008; Luis et al., 2008; Aymerich et al., 2009; Grossman, 2009; Korri, 2009; Maggiani, 2009; Nelson, 2009). In the Digital Britain (2009) report, the UK government sees the adoption of cloud computing as critical to the success of its plans to increase efficiency in the public sector and is working with various suppliers to develop a dedicated G-Cloud for the delivery of all government services.