From Collaboration to the Cloud: A Short History of Cloud
Computing
Cloud computing has as its antecedents both client/server computing and
peer-to-peer distributed computing. It’s all a matter of how centralized storage
facilitates collaboration and how multiple computers work together to
increase computing power.
Client/Server Computing: Centralized Applications and Storage
In the antediluvian days of computing (pre-1980 or so), everything operated
on the client/server model. All the software applications, all the data, and all
the control resided on huge mainframe computers, otherwise known as servers.
If a user wanted to access specific data or run a program, he had to connect to
the mainframe, gain appropriate access, and then do his business while essen-
tially “renting” the program or data from the server.
Users connected to the server via a computer terminal, sometimes called a
workstation or client. This computer was sometimes called a dumb terminal
because it didn’t have a lot (if any!) memory, storage space, or processing
power. It was merely a device that connected the user to and enabled him to
use the mainframe computer.
Users accessed the mainframe only when granted permission, and the infor-
mation technology (IT) staff weren’t in the habit of handing out access casu-
ally. Even on a mainframe computer, processing power is limited—and the IT
staff were the guardians of that power. Access was not immediate, nor could
two users access the same data at the same time.
Beyond that, users pretty much had to take whatever the IT staff gave them—
with no variations. Want to customize a report to show only a subset of the
normal information? Can’t do it. Want to create a new report to look at some
new data? You can’t do it, although the IT staff can—but on their schedule,
which might be weeks from now.
The fact is, when multiple people are sharing a single computer, even if that
computer is a huge mainframe, you have to wait your turn. Need to rerun a
financial report? No problem—if you don’t mind waiting until this afternoon,
or tomorrow morning. There isn’t always immediate access in a client/server
environment, and seldom is there immediate gratification.
So the client/server model, while providing similar centralized storage, differed
from cloud computing in that it did not have a user-centric focus; with
client/server computing, all the control rested with the mainframe—and with
the guardians of that single computer. It was not a user-enabling environment.