The March 2, 2009 issue of Fortune magazine got me thinking about the various types of cloud computing.  Prior to reading it, I thought of the Cloud much as VMware describes it; an on-demand computing resource that can be transparently used when needed.  However, Forture defined the Cloud as “centralized computing services that are delivered over the internet.”  I have always thought of this model as Software as a Service (SaaS), and I am not sure I agree with the “centralized” part.  Fortune mentioned salesforce.com as an example of a company leveraging cloud computing.  Another article in the same issue described how Kenworth trucks “took advantage of cloud computing” because they rented time on a supercomputer thousands of mile away.  Finally, a sidebar article implied that cloud computing is “applications housed remotely and delivered via the net.

When I first read the articles I thought, “Fortune doesn’t get it.  That isn’t cloud computing.”  Upon further reflection I wondered if maybe my definition is too restrictive.  Maybe cloud computing is a category that includes multiple types of computing, including SaaS.  I wonder if it is time for someone to define a cloud computing taxonomy.

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