It appears that the US Federal Government (oddly one of the leaders in cloud computing) is beginning to define cloud computing. Last week Reuven Cohen posted on his blog the draft definition constructed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The definition outlines key characteristics, delivery models, and deployment models and then defines each options. Below you can see a brief description of each. Its a great definition that helps clarify things that weren’t so clear before. And sadly there goes my grand vision to be the definer of cloud computing (like that was going to happen anyway).
Key Characteristics
- on-demand self-service
- ubiquitous network access
- location-independent resource pooling
- rapid elasticity
- pay-per-use
Delivery Models
- SaaS (software as a service)
- Paas (platform as a service)
- Iaas (infrastructure as a service)
Deployment Models
- private cloud
- community cloud
- public cloud
- hyrbrid cloud