There is a great deal of ambiguity around cloud computing and no agreed definition still exists, although many have provided their 
own understanding of cloud based services and technologies. A recent, and very readable, webtutorial report (Nov. 2009) called “A Guide For Understanding Cloud Computing” by Dr. Jim Metzler makes a clear attempt to define the characteristics of cloud computing and its boundaries. Firstly, it answers the question of cloud computing primary objective as “to make a dramatic improvement in the cost effective elastic provisioning of IT services”. Secondly, it identifies eleven (or twelve) primary characteristics of a cloud computing solution:
- Centralization – applications, servers, storage
- Virtualization – including servers, storage, networks, desktops, etc
- Automation – provisioning, troubleshooting, configuration
- Dynamic movement of resources – such as virtual machines and storage
- Internet reliance – extensive use of the internet for deployment and service provisioning
- Self-service – users can select, configure and modify resources and services themselves online
- Pay-as-you-go – user pay for consuming the service, no or minimum up-front fees
- Simplification – fewer versions running, less IT resource complexity for organizations
- Standardization – users gain access to standardized applications and hardware resources, fewer vendors
- Technology convergence – enabling convergence of multiple technologies such as servers, networks, storage, etc.
- Federation through standardization – with standardization comes the federation of disparate cloud computing infrastructures
This is an interesting list that provide a comprehensive picture of what characterizes cloud computing. Some of the characteristics are obviously more developed than others. Centralization and virtualization, for example, are already becoming mature and established technologies for enabling economical cloud computing services, while standards are largely still missing and federation of cloud computing infrastructures is still somewhat further ahead and is, of course, strongly linked to and dependent upon available standards. Still it’s a good idea to keep these in mind when you need to identify whether a service is cloud computing, or not.
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