In 1969, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the chief scientists of the original Advanced Research Projects
Agency Network (ARPANET), which seeded the Internet, said:
“As of now, computer networks are still in their infancy, but as they grow up and become sophisti-
cated, we will probably see the spread of ‘computer utilities’ which, like present electric and
telephone utilities, will service individual homes and offices across the country.”
Cloud computing allows renting infrastructure, runtime environments, and services on a pay-per-
use basis. This principle finds several practical applications and then gives different images of cloud
computing to different people. Chief information and technology officers of large enterprises see
opportunities for scaling their infrastructure on demand and sizing it according to their business
needs. End users leveraging cloud computing services can access their documents and data
anytime,anywhere, and from any device connected to the Internet. Many other points of view exist.
One of the most diffuse views of cloud computing can be summarized as follows:
“I don’t care where my servers are, who manages them, where my documents are stored, or where
my applications are hosted. I just want them always available and access them from any device
connected through Internet. And I am willing to pay for this service for as a long as I need it.”